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THE BELLMAN 
BOOK OF FICTION 


★ 

1906—1919 




































rj-?va. 

The Bellman 

Book of Fiction 

★ 

1906-1919 


Chosen and Edited by 

WILLIAM C. EDGAR 

late Editor of The Bellman 


Minneapolis, Minn., U. S. A. 
The Bellman Company 
1921 


Copyright 1921 
by 

The Bellman Company 


DEC 


5 71 


§> C! A 6 3 0 5 8 2 


FORMER READERS OF 

£be Bellman 


WHOSE GENEROUS GOOD WILL 
AND LOYAL SUPPORT MADE 


ITS SUCCESS POSSIBLE 






PREFACE 



HE kindly reception given to The Bellman 


1 Book of Verse is mainly responsible for the 
publication of this collection of short stories, 
originally printed in The Bellman, and should it 
find favor equal to that of its predecessor, it is 
probable that other volumes of like character may 
follow this. 

Indeed, the former editor of The Bellman has 
in mind the publication of a series of books, uni¬ 
form in size and appearance with this, including 
a second and perhaps a third volume of fiction and, 
finally, The Bellman’s Book of Essays, to contain 
some of the essays and editorials of that periodical 
which are esteemed of more than transient value; 
in all, perhaps half a dozen small volumes. 

Whether this congenial undertaking shall be 
carried out or abandoned depends very largely upon 
the welcome given this, the second book of the con¬ 
templated series. There is no desire to exploit the 
files of The Bellman for commercial purposes, but 
should it appear that there exists a sincere demand 
for such literature it will be the writer’s pleasure 
to supply it. 

More than two years have passed since The 
Bellman was discontinued, and it is most gratify¬ 
ing to its founder, as well as to all those who were 
concerned in its publication, to note many con¬ 
tinuing evidences of the regard and appreciation 


vii 


PREFACE 


in which it was held by its farmer readers and to 
receive repeated expressions of regret that it has 
ceased to exist. 

The Bellman is no more, but his memory still 
endures, and evidently a large number of his loyal 
old friends continue faithfully to cherish it. 

F or them, more especially, is this collection 
published. The selection has been made almost at 
random and does not pretend to be a choice of the 
best stories that were printed in The Bellman, but 
merely a few of those among the many which ap¬ 
peared under the familiar heading, “The Bellman’s 
Tale,” and which the editor considers meritorious 
and worthy of perpetuation in book form. 

November, 1921. —W. C. E. 



vm 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Mute, Robert TV. Sneddon ... 1 

The Laughing Duchess, 

Virginia Woodivard Cloud . . . 13 
Long, Long Ago, Frederick Orin Bartlett . 34 
The Right Whale’s Flukes, 

Ben Ames Williams .... 45 

When Breathitt Went to Battle, 

Lewis H. Kilpatrick .... 70 

The Forgiver, Marjorie L. C. Pickthall . 87 

Told to Parson, Eden Phillpotts . .100 

Iron, Randolph Edgar . Ill 

The Perfect Interval, 

Margaret Adelaide Wilson . . .113 

The Archbishop of Rheims, 

Emily W. Scott . . . . .132 

The Trawnbeighs, 

Charles Macomb Flandrau . . .145 

The Life Belt, J. J. Bell .... 157 

Amina, Edward Lucas White . . .168 

The Silver Ring, Frank Swinnerton . .183 

The Surgeon, B. W. Mitchell . . .193 

The ’Dopters, Aileen Cleveland Higgins . 201 

Prem Singh, John Amid . . . .216 

Even So, Charles Boardman Hawes . . 223 

The Cask Ashore, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch 243 








THE MUTE 

Le Muet started as the cold steel of a rifle bar¬ 
rel touched his neck, and turning his head stumbled 
to his feet. Behind him stood four Bavarian sol¬ 
diers grinning maliciously at his surprise. They 
spoke to him, and he made no attempt to answer. 

“Have you seen the French?” they asked again. 

He gaped at them with an empty expression. 
One of them seized him by the arm, and twisted it 
cruelly. A low, hoarse, guttural sound came from 
Le Muet’s lips, and his face was convulsed with 
effort. Shaking himself loose, he pointed to his 
ears and mouth, then let his chin sink upon his 
breast. He spread his hands in a gesture of de¬ 
spondency, and shook his head from side to side. 

The soldiers looked at him angrily, then their 
leader, giving the peasant a push which sent him 
upon his knees among the turnips, issued an order 
in a low voice, and as silently as they had come the 
four men disappeared, with bodies bent low, among 
the trees of the plantation. 

When Le Muet looked again they were out of 
sight. His heart was beating, he trembled, and it 
seemed as if there was no strength in his limbs and 
that the struggle he had made to utter intelligible 
sounds had left him exhausted. For a long time he 
knelt staring at the woods before he rose to his 
feet and shook his fist in the direction in which 
they had gone. Then he took to his heels, and ran 
as quickly as he could to the village. 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


When all the able-bodied men in the village 
had gone, there, remained only two, Monsieur the 
cure and he whom they called Le Muet, a strapping 
big fellow with the strength of an ox, to whom, 
for no fault of his own, had been denied the gifts 
of speech and hearing. 

Naturally Le Muet was not called upon to do 
his years in the army. His dumb deafness would 
have broken the heart of any drill sergeant as it 
did that of his schoolmaster who, having heard of 
lip-reading, experimented with him for a month 
and then broke his best ruler over the lad’s stupid 
head. 

Not that Le Muet was stupid except in book 
learning. When one is dumb, one talks to beasts 
and birds in sounds that they can understand, and 
as for hearing, there is no need of that with a dog 
who speaks with his eyes, his tail, his body. And 
Le Muet had a dog, a shaggy, unkempt animal with 
vagabond habits, who disappeared for days at a 
time, and returned without explanation from 
marauding expeditions in the woods. It was said 
that the gamekeeper had sworn to riddle him with 
shot the first time he caught him in the act, but, 
after all, the gamekeeper was a merciful man, and 
there is no doubt that he missed many a good 
chance to rob Le Muet of his heel companion. The 
dog was harmless enough, although it may well be 
understood that he would not have hesitated to try 
his teeth upon those Bavarian invaders, had he not 
gone the day before upon a poaching quest. 

There was only one person to whom Le Muet 
could betake himself in the hour of need: Monsieur 
the cure, who had remained behind to look after 
the women and children. The cure was a robust 


THE MUTE 


3 


little man, with a brown, wrinkled face and eyes 
full of understanding and sympathy: eyes that, 
alas, no longer twinkled merrily, but were dulled 
with a great sadness. He was standing on the 
other side of the square from the church, looking 
intently at the building as if to commit to memory 
the position of every one of its timeworn and hal¬ 
lowed stones, for it was known that even churches 
were not spared by the barbarians, and any day 
they might appear in the village with fire and 
sword. 

Le Muet hesitated a little, standing with heav¬ 
ing breast, his eyes bloodshot with his running, 
before he ventured to lay his hand upon the sleeve 
of the black soutane. The cure, as if roused from 
a dream, looked at him, then grew grave with ap¬ 
prehension. Hastily he looked in the direction 
from which Le Muet had come, and pointed. Le 
Muet nodded his head eagerly, and in clumsy pan¬ 
tomime told his tale: four fingers for four men, the 
helmets, the barrel upon his neck, the crouching 
retreat. 

The cure, laying his hand upon Le Muet’s arm, 
patted it gently, and led the way across the square 
and into the church. Near the door he knelt, and 
Le Muet followed his example. For a few seconds 
they remained thus, side by side, their faces turned 
to the altar, then the cure rose to his feet and let 
his eyes pass lovingly from window to window, 
from painted saint to sculptured and, guiding Le 
Muet to the door, came out, locked the carved dou¬ 
ble door, and descended the steps. 

For a moment he stood there with bent head, 
then set out briskly, going from house to house, 
telling the women not to be afraid, but to collect 


4 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


the children, get food and covering together, and to 
meet in the square. Soon they were there, a piteous 
band, very silent and hushed. One mother carried 
in her arms two children, a baby a few months old 
and a boy of three, and as the cure saw her stumble, 
he reached out and took the boy into his arms. 

As the cure led the way, there was a moment of 
panic, and some hung back, but gradually the little 
band fell in behind him, and at the end came Le 
Muet, stepping out with short strides so as not to 
tread upon any one’s heels. They passed through 
the village street, their eyes straining in front of 
them that they might not see the open windows 
and the doors, the flowers climbing and crowding 
about the green shutters, the smoke still rising from 
hearths on which the midday meal had been cook¬ 
ing. An old woman sank to the ground, and with¬ 
out a word two of the younger raised her and, sup¬ 
porting her, guided her frail and stumbling feet. 

At the crossroads, the cure halted and, standing 
on the steps of the cross with its carven figure of 
the Redeemer, looked over his little band, and rais¬ 
ing his hand blessed them in a trembling voice, 
then in a command, ringing out strong and clear 
like that of a soldier, set them in motion once more 
on the road to safety. 

All at once Le Muet halted. What was he 
doing? He who had no human kin had left behind 
him the one thing he loved: his dog. His brain was 
confused by the excitement of the day, otherwise 
he would not have forgotten how often he had been 
sought out and found by the faithful creature. He 
looked in front of him. The company of refugees 
was just turning the corner. He must find his 
dog. Surely Monsieur the cure would forgive him; 


THE MUTE 


5 


besides, with his long legs, he could easily catch 
up. Resolutely he turned on his heel and trudged 
back the way he had come. 

As he passed through the village square, from 
an open door came a tempting odor of cooking, and 
with a sly grunt he stepped inside, filled a bowl 
from the soup pot and sat down. One must eat, 
whatever comes to pass, and it is easier to die with 
a full stomach than an empty one. 

He had just sopped up the last drop of cabbage 
soup with an end of loaf when, turning his eyes 
to the open door, he was amazed to see a couple 
of horsemen dismounting in front of it. As if they 
knew their way, they tethered their horses to a post 
and strode into the cottage. 

Le Muet rose to his feet, and the intruders cov¬ 
ered him with their rifles. Suddenly one of them 
broke into a grin and, turning, spoke to his com¬ 
panion. They lowered their rifles, and the first 
comer nodded in a friendly fashion to Le Muet and 
offered him his hand. 

In a daze Le Muet accepted the courtesy. What 
a surprise! Here, in a Uhlan uniform, was the 
peddler, Woerth, who had travelled the countryside 
for many a year. He had not been seen for a long 
time, and now—Le Muet grinned in response. The 
peddler had done him many a kindness, and 
tramped the woods with him more times than once: 
a sharp-faced, thin man, with white-lashed blue 
eyes. 

He sat down at the table again as they dipped 
their cans into the soup pot and divided the loaf. 
With a careless air the peddler knocked in the head 
of the cider cask, and filled three glasses. Le Muet 
began to feel at his ease. After all, he knew the 


6 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


peddler, and if this was war, surely it was not an 
affair of bloodshed; one sat at the table with an old 
friend and drank cider. He could not understand 
what they were saying, but he could discover noth¬ 
ing to be afraid of in their looks. 

When they had eaten and drunken their fill, 
the peddler lit his pipe, and with a smile strolled 
about the room, opening closet doors, lifting up the 
lid of the linen chest, pulling out the drawers of 
the carved bureau and scattering the contents on 
the floor, knocking the walls and stamping on the 
floor as if to discover the hiding place of treasure. 
But nothing of value rewarded his search, and he 
appeared angry, for he swept the few little china 
ornaments from the mantel shelf and stamped upon 
them. 

Le Muet rose to his feet. He must be going. 
His dog might be searching for him, and, besides, 
if he was to catch up with Monsieur the cure he 
must be getting along. As he walked to the door, 
the peddler turned sharply, and taking a couple of 
quick strides let his hand fall heavily on his shoul¬ 
der. There was no good humor in the jDeddler’s 
face now. He gave a word of command to his com¬ 
panion, who produced a rope, and putting a tight 
knot around Le Muet’s wrist, gave him a shove that 
propelled him out of the door. 

What was going to happen now, wondered Le 
Muet. He was not long left in doubt. His captors 
went from house to house, picking their plunder, 
clothes, bric-a-brac, copper cooking utensils, till 
they had accumulated two huge bundles tied in 
blankets. They were loaded upon Le Muet’s back 
and, mounting their horses, the peddler and his 
comrade rode on slowly, driving Le Muet like a 
cow before them. 


THE MUTE 


7 


A dull rage, all the more terrible since it could 
find no expression, filled his heart now. His load 
lay upon his neck and shoulders like lead, and the 
sweat trickled down his face and the furrow of his 
bent and tortured back. When he stopped, a prod 
from lance or saber set his failing legs moving once 
more, and he ground his teeth in speechless agony. 
So, too, perhaps feel the dumb carriers of burdens, 
but in the brain of Le Muet the suffering was in¬ 
tensified. In his obstinate way he had set his heart 
upon finding his dog, and now with every step he 
took he might be going further away. 

They were going through the plantation now, 
and approaching the forest. It was hard going 
among the low brushwood that caught like so many 
grasping hands at his legs and tripped him up. 
Would they never stop for rest? They were within 
the woods now. At last the two horsemen dis¬ 
mounted, and looked about them as if seeking a 
landmark. Seeing a pile of white stones from the 
quarry, they nodded their heads, and with a look 
at their watches sat down on the edge of the path¬ 
way. 

Le Muet lay on the ground exhausted, and they 
let him lie undisturbed, talking to each other in 
low tones. The mute must have slept, for when 
he opened his eyes again there were gray uniforms 
all about him, their wearers sprawling on the 
ground in easy attitudes. Here and there dimly 
among the trees he could see others leaning upon 
their rifles. He sat up and looked about him. 

The peddler had a map in front of him, and 
bending over it was a fine officer; for so he must be, 
since the peddler nodded servilely whenever the 
other spoke. Le Muet was still staring when the 


8 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


officer raised his head and caught sight of him. He 
turned to the peddler, who laughed and pointed to 
his mouth and ears, assuming a stupid expression, 
and the officer nodded curtly and bent over the map 
again. In a little while he called some of his men 
about him and spoke to them. They disappeared 
on either side of the narrow path. There was no 
sign of a horse anywhere, and Le Muet wondered if 
they were stabled in the quarry, and if their lot 
was better than his. 

The peddler folded up his map, and coming 
over to Le Muet pointed to a clump of brushwood, 
and with a struggle the weary unfortunate rose to 
his feet, shouldered his bundles and followed. 
They lay down, the peddler with his rifle by his 
side. In a moment they were joined by the officer 
and six of his men. They reclined quietly, as if 
listening. 

Suddenly the officer raised his pistol. Some¬ 
thing was coming through the brushwood; but he 
lowered it with a grim smile as a shaggy head, fol¬ 
lowed by a shaggy body, made its appearance. 
There was a bound, and Le Muet felt himself 
tumbled to earth under the impact of a clumsy 
body. A rough tongue was licking his face. His 
dog had found him. 

Nothing else mattered now, and with strange, 
uncouth murmurings he clasped the shaggy body 
to his own again and again. He did not see that 
the officer’s face had grown dark with anger or that 
he had raised his pistol again only to slip it back 
into the holster as the peddler touched his arm 
and cautiously pointed through an opening in the 
bushes. A man in a blue uniform had just risen to 
his feet on the path, and was looking about him 


THE MUTE 


9 


with a searching glance. Nothing stirred in the 
thickets, and he walked on. 

Le Muet saw the figures beside him stiffen, and 
rifles raised. Suddenly the dog moved uneasily and 
gave a low whimper. With a savage indrawing of 
his breath the officer turned sharply and, shorten¬ 
ing his sword, drove it into the body of the dog. 
A whispered command, and a heavy rifle butt fell 
upon its head. 

Le Muet sat upright, staring, confused. He 
held the quivering body close against him, dead to 
all thought but that of this strangely cruel deed. 
What was it all about? In a flash it came to him. 
Those about him were lying in wait to kill, and 
those whom they would kill were his own: French¬ 
men like himself, like the man who had risen in the 
clearing and walked on unconscious of danger. 

With a mighty effort he held himself from fling¬ 
ing his weight upon the officer. He was not afraid 
now. They had killed his dog. They might kill 
him, only there were others coming, unwarned, and 
he without voice to warn them: those others who 
were also of France. 

Oh, if only Monsieur the cure were with him. 
The cure had shown him pictures of miracles 
wrought by God, the blessed mother and the saints: 
miracles wherein the sick were healed, the blind 
were made to see, the dumb to speak. Perhaps, if 
he tried, words would come to his lips, words would 
come in time to save those who were about to come 
into this trap. Bending his head low, he filled his 
lungs, he felt the muscles about his abdomen 
tighten. His mind was surging with desire, he was 
about to speak at last; and then the breath he had 
sucked within him filtered through the passage of 
his throat in harsh and broken gasps. 


10 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


A buffet on the mouth from the officer threw him 
on his back, and for a moment he lay stunned, but 
for a moment only; then bounding to his feet, with 
a desperate leap that cleared the brush he was out 
and upon the path. Through the trees in front of 
him he saw the glint of bayonets. They were 
coming, coming into the trap. He must run to 
them. 

All at once he felt arms about his knees. Two 
of the Germans had crept out from the other side 
of the path and were holding him by the ankles. 
With a wrench of his strong legs he loosened him¬ 
self from the hold: two swift kicks, and he was 
free. To run—he did not notice the rope stretched 
across the path at the level of his ankles and with 
a jerk he fell upon his face. At once they were 
upon him. He felt a writhing hand that tore at 
his throat and, bending his chin, he bit savagely 
at it with his firm teeth. It seemed to him as if he 
had superhuman power, and that he had but to 
open his mouth to send forth a ringing cry. 

He was on his knees now, a man upon his back, 
and bending forward suddenly he swung the claw¬ 
ing thing over his shoulder to the ground. His 
hands sought the throat. Then came a sharp, 
agonizing pain. The other had stabbed him in the 
back, with a wrench and a twist of the bayonet 
blade. 

He rose to his feet as if by a miracle, one foot 
uplifted to step forward, then set his foot down 
upon the ground. The earth was trembling and 
swaying beneath him. With his lacerated hands he 
tore at his throat as if to pluck the useless vocal 
cords from their covering of flesh. A strange bel¬ 
lowing came from his lips,—now red with a bloody 


THE MUTE 


11 


foam,—growing in volume, and then, as he strained 
at his throat with compressing hands, he felt a 
great joy and triumphant peace come upon him. 
He was speaking—no, it was a shout—so clearly— 
so easily: 

“Back, comrades—a boche trap—” and then, as 
he sank to his knees, “Vive la France!” 

He did not hear—how could he, the deaf one? 
—the volleys that passed over his body as the 
French halted and in a swift rush deployed to left 
and right of the path; the tramping of feet in the 
brushwood; the dull thud of rifle butts, and squeal 
of agony as bayonet found what it sought. 

When it was over, the French commander 
looked grimly and without compassion at the sullen 
face of fhe German captain staring up at him from 
the ground, then turned to look down curiously at 
the body of Le Muet. 

“One of yours?” he asked. “He wears no uni¬ 
form.” 

“A peasant from the village—captured; he was 
deaf and dumb,” grunted the captain with a spasm 
of pain. 

The commander drew himself up sharply. 

“Deaf and dumb—nonsense!” 

The peddler, lying against a tree endeavoring 
to staunch a leg wound, saw the French commander 
look at him inquiringly. 

“Surely, he was a mute. It was impossible for 
him to say a word. I knew him very well,” he 
hastened to answer. 

The commander looked at him as if astonished, 
then turned away, with a murmur. 

“I must have been dreaming, but I could have 
sworn he called out, ‘Vive la France’ ”; and then, 


12 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 

because he was a poet, he added: “But then, when 
every stone of la patrie cries out, why not this 
dumb peasant? It is a war of miracles.” 

Robert W. Sneddon. 


THE LAUGHING DUCHESS 

The optimist, safely outside our own environs, 
prescribes the old formulas: “Look Around You 
and Write; Look Within the Human Heart—” 

“But, dear sir, where is the story?” Usually 
it is a “Sir,” and this time it was Felmer Prince. 
“Look Around You!” 

I mocked: “I defy you to find anything more 
stirring than old Sam Peters, driving a moth-eaten 
mule to the mill.” 

“And you and I,” supplemented Felmer. “The 
human heart—” 

But I retreated behind the gate and barred it 
upon the “human heart,” retorting that if the 
organ disturbed me as it did some people I should 
confine my conversation to “Yes” and “No.” 

“You are sufficiently expert in the use of the 
negative,” said Felmer, switching at a dead brier, 
and I proceeded: “As for ‘looking within/ when 
Martha and I reach the homicidal point I take a 
walk.” 

“How many subscriptions have you gotten for 
that confounded thing, Enid?” he asked, abruptly. 
I temporized. 

“One can live on very little after the habit is 
formed.” 

Felmer shook the gate fiercely. “I wish that 
you would listen to reason!” 

“I do, to my own. I’m thinking of selling—” 


14 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“Not the place!” he broke in. I asked him, as 
a man and a neighbor, if he thought that any sane 
tenant would invest in a left-over colonial, with 
roof leaking, paint off, shutters hanging; populated 
by generations of bats, and with a frog pond beside 
which Poe’s Raven was a paean of joy? 

“A place with no remaining virtue—” 

“Except beauty,” he added. I clung to the 
gate’s bars, my brow upon my hands, and pain 
shaking my heart. 

“And I’m a fool about it!” I said, miserably. 
“Every mossy old flagstone, and the very wizardry 
of its black woods against the sky, means me. It 
is psychic with inherited memories.” 

“M iss E-enid! Are your shoes dry?” screamed 
Martha from the back door. 

“To sell?” prodded Prince, relentlessly. 

“The ivory Buddha and the Mercury, at the 
Collectors’ International Exposition opened up in 
town. Now is my chance.” He nodded. 

“But be wary, Enid. You women—” 

I reminded him that the vice president was 
Cary Penwick, a cousin of my own, the fear and 
fascination of childhood’s idolatry. Prince said 
rather gloomily that he had never heard me men¬ 
tion this cousin, which was not surprising; the last 
time I saw Cary Penwick he was a wild boy of 
fourteen, with hair in his eyes and a brain full of 
adventurous mischief. I was an imaginative child 
of eight years, and memory’s tenderest association 
with Cary was a mutual and unappeased hunger. 

“We roasted corn at the field’s edge and climbed 
the roof to steal bricks out of the chimney, to build 
the oven.” I marched on, with Cary borne banner¬ 
like before, to relate how the poor boy’s father had 


THE LAUGHING DUCHESS 


15 


been the family skeleton, grandma’s black sheep 
son, smirched with disgrace, who died in Paris. 
Finally, Cary’s mother’s family had sent him off 
to school, from which he consistently ran away, 
and we never saw him again. He had vowed that 
one day he would return— At Prince’s laugh, I 
ended haughtily: “To get even with me for kicking 
him, when he carried me dripping from the frog 
pond. I remember that he slapped me. Now, the 
papers call him a famous collector, and I am sure 
Cary will help me dispose of the things to advan¬ 
tage.” 

Prince dug wells in the mud with his stick. 
“Of course, Enid, being a relative—but it is safer 
always to have the opinion of more than one before 
coming to a settlement.” 

And, according to history’s human law, I 
laughed his caution to the winds. 

* * 

“Are your feet dry, Miss Enid?” 

This being her perennial, I stuck them on the 
fender and drank tea, while Martha hovered, hen¬ 
like and solicitous. “Did you get any, miss?” 

As on preceding afternoons, I explained that 
“The World at Home” did not drag subscribers 
in with a seine. 

“You know that I got one last week, Martha, 
but the people look for me now. Poor Mr. Petty 
was at the gate with a flaming sword. I mean, the 
shovel.” 

“Then he wasn’t sober, miss.” 

“Obviously not. I let sleeping Pettys lie, since 
he put me out of the house as ‘them agents.’ ” 

“Eight sticks, some fence rails and three bar- 


16 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


rels,” chanted Martha, to the wood-basket on the 
hearth. 

“And the last timber sold for the mortgage,” I 
ruminated. “How’s the caravansary: the food, O 
faithful Achates? I can eat less.” 

“For the land’s sake, don’t, Miss Enid! You 
don’t weigh more’n a sparrow now. It’s a long 
road that’s got no turnin’, but joy cometh in the 
mornin’, as the hymn says.” Martha stood over 
me, her hands under her apron, her little shawl 
crossed and tied behind. “There’s some corn meal 
left— 

“Too fattening.” 

“A quart of vinegar—” 

“Ah, now we are arriving! Socrates and the 
hemlock!” 

“No, miss, vinegar. Half a ham, some rice—” 

“And you call it low rations!” I rebuked. “I’ll 
bet my hard-earned subscription that your grand¬ 
father wasn’t a highwayman, Martha.” 

“My soul, no, miss! There wasn’t nothin’ of 
the kind in our family. He was a elder.” 

“I feared so. There is nothing of the pirate 
concealed about you, else you’d not be toasting 
starvation with half a ham and a pound of rice in 
reserve. You and Dr. Prince could do ensemble 
work as star pessimists. Now, nature contrived 
me in a perverse and whimsical mood. Give me a 
black night and a star’s twinkle, and I’ll dig for 
doubloons; a red sunset and a dark woods con¬ 
verts me into a doughty knight, ready to hew his 
way through the thorny hedge of the world! Eight 
sticks and half a ham! Woman, we’re good for 
flood or barricade.” 

But Martha, hardened to a lifetime of like 
panegyrics, was not to be diverted. 



THE LAUGHING DUCHESS 


17 


“Yes, miss. So I say. We must do some¬ 
thing.” 

“The telephone! It shall go at the end of the 
month.” 

“And there’s that there Duchess, Miss Enid, 
sittin’ in there in a gold frame, not doin’ no good 
to nobody. The collector gentleman said it would 
bring its price, miss.” 

I came to earth with a thud, and retrod the 
battlefield peopled by ghosts of past encounters. 
The Fierienti Duchess, my grandmother’s great- 
great-grandmother, had been the family mascot for 
generations. Cary Penwick alone, as grandma’s 
last surviving male relative, should have the re¬ 
sponsibility of the Laughing Duchess. 

“But, don’t forget it’s yours, Miss,” Martha 
held on. “Your grandma says, ‘Martha,’ she says, 
‘take care of her always, and keep the Duchess 
dusted!’ ‘I will, ma’am,’ says I, ‘long as there’s 
breath in my veins!’ says I. ’Tenny rate. Miss 
Enid, there’s that there Chinese idol settin’ on his 
heels, lookin’ enough like Wung Loo at the laundry 
to be his brother—” 

This of- thee, O shade of Buddha! 

“—And that boy with wings on his feet, ’stead 
of skates—” 

And thou, immortal Mercury! 

“—You could get as high as two hundred for 
’em, maybe.” 

I admitted the possibility, but was determined 
to submit the Fierienti only to the first authority 
among collectors. 

And, at that moment, with the ringing of the 
telephone, the unexpected stepped in as stage man¬ 
ager, and gave me a protracted performance for 
twenty-four hours. 


18 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“I guess Dr. Prince’s ringin’ to see if we’re all 
right for the night/’ speculated Martha, who in¬ 
variably gambled upon a letter before opening it. 

“Suppose you go up to town tomorrow, Enid, 
and consult Penwick,” came Prince’s kind voice. 
“We are instructed to catch opportunity by the 
forelock. And, if you want me to go along—” 

I cruelly ignored the. eager implication. I 
would go alone. 

“Collecting becomes an unmoral science,” he 
went on. “Knowing your incredible enthusiasms—” 

“Help! Help!” I interposed. 

“—Your incredible enthusiasms, you should not 
take the antiques with you. Let a collector come 
out and value them.” 

As I had a vision of starting with eight inches 
of Buddha and returning with five hundred cash, 
I demurred, but he held his point, and finally I 
capitulated, and for peace at any price agreed to 
telephone him which train to meet. In the morn¬ 
ing, I covered the two miles to the station with the 
elation of the adventuress who casts her last two 
dollars on the roulette of the railroad, and draws 
a possible fare to fortune. 

In the exposition building, I went from office to 
committee rooms, only to discover that the vice 
president was away for the day, and not expected 
to return until evening, and, having dropped forty 
degrees mentally, I sat at the end of a corridor, 
killing time upon the pretense of examining a tele¬ 
phone register. Three delegates, obviously wined 
and lunched, halted near, talking. 

“Yes, yes, smart chap,” said number one, “but 
keen on the main chance. Ever hear the story of 
old Mrs. Mace’s Romney? Old Mrs. Mace, widow 


THE LAUGHING DUCHESS 


19 


of his friend, owned a great Romney. He was hard 
on its track and sent an agent, who valued it, as a 
good copy, at two hundred. The old lady indig¬ 
nantly refuses. The collector goes off to Mexico to 
investigate the Talahiti excavations, but sends a 
second agent, who declares it to be worth all of 
three hundred. The old lady, finally, at the end of 
everything, sells. The Romney disappears. When 
her money goes, the old lady in despair dies. Now, 
his Romney sells high in the thousands. Not a nice 
story, what?” 

The chorus admitted that it was not, and I sat 
petrified, and thankful that I had a relative among 
the elect. Number two spoke: 

“There is big betting on his wager with Dantre. 
He swears to better Dantre’s exhibits with a gem 
that will knock them into cockles. Says he can 
produce a genuine original Fierienti.” 

“Piffle!” exclaimed number three. “There were 
two Fierientis, the Laughing Duchess, destroyed in 
the great fire of London, and its copy, made by 
Fierienti, now in the Metropolitan.” 

Arguing this point they passed on, and I sat 
with face bent over the book, and with thought 
rushing tumultuously. My picture, at Brookchase, 
was the original Fierienti, the copy of which was 
in the Metropolitan. Of this there had never been 
a doubt; the Chevalier de Russy, member of the 
French Academy, had vouched for it, when on a 
visit to grandma. Besides, I had its records. Who, 
then, was “he”? And where could “he” find an¬ 
other original Fierienti? 

I was on my feet to follow and find out, when 
Prince’s words swung back to me: “Knowing your 
incredible enthusiasms—” I sank back, crushing 


20 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


down impulse, and then, under a desperate desire 
for action, gave his number to the local exchange, 
and entered booth number four. 

Inside the booth, through the blurred reflection 
of my own image upon the glass, I discerned the 
outline of a man, in the adjoining booth: a smooth, 
dark head bent upon a slender hand, above which 
was visible an odd cufflink, two swastikas in red 
Roman gold. My call was answered by Prince’s 
old housekeeper. 

“This is Miss Legree,” I said. Then came 
Prince’s voice: “What luck, Enid?” 

“None,” I replied. “Penwick is away for the 
day, and I am glad that I left the Fierienti at 
home, although I am eager to solve a mystery. I 
overheard something about another Fierienti, 
whereas I know that there is no other. I will be 
at Brookchase by the four o’clock express, but can 
walk to the gate at the crossroads.” 

Prince laughed, and as I rang off I clearly 
heard the voice of the man in the adjoining booth, 
repeating his number. He, in turn then, must have 
overheard me. Dismissing this as irrelevant, I 
went to the station and waited morosely until the 
afternoon express bore me back to the realization 
of being the poorer by one railroad fare. 

Driving between bare fields, Prince said: 
“Don’t worry.” 

“If a woman loses an eye or has a toothache it 
is quite intelligible,” I resented. “But if she col¬ 
lapses from nerves, or stares nothingness in the 
face, men tell her not to worry. I shall write to 
Cary Penwick tomorrow, and hand the Laughing 
Duchess over to him. He may sell it for what he 
can get.” 


THE LAUGHING DUCHESS 


21 


Prince flicked the colt to a trot, and said: 
“Better go slow. I’ve heard some queer things 
about collectors.” 

“Things like old Mrs. Mace’s Romney, I sup¬ 
pose,” I said. 

He jerked the reins abruptly: “What of it? 
There was an old Mrs. Mace in our home town who 
owned a Romney. Jove! I’d forgotten all about 
that. Why—” he stopped short, his brows drawn 
sharply into a frown. I related the story I had 
heard, but added that all collectors were not pick¬ 
pockets. Prince, however, drove in thoughtful 
silence. “I wish you’d let me do more for you,” he 
began at the gate. But I ran up the path, laugh¬ 
ing back at him. 

At seven o’clock the unexpected again rang the 
telephone, and thought instantly visualized the 
voice as fat, florid and fed. The revolution was 
therefore complete when it said: “Cousin Enid, this 
is Cary Penwick. I hope you remember me. . . . 
Yes, my dear girl, twenty-five years! You would 
not recognize me.” 

“Oh, but I should!” I cried, happily. “A dark¬ 
eyed boy with his hair in his eyes, and a brain set 
on adventure. . . . But your voice does not in the 
least sound like you. Do come out and let me see 
you.” 

He assured me that such had been his inten¬ 
tion, but an. official banquet and a directors’ meet¬ 
ing intervened. Finally, it was decided that he 
should motor out after the banquet, and remain at 
Brookchase for the night. “Do not wait up for 
me. Your man can meet me. I shall be there by 
twelve,” he said. 

Having recovered from the natural effects of 


22 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


hearing that there was no man, he added: “By the 
way, Enid, I seem to remember that your grand¬ 
mother had some quaint old things. Were there 
not several paintings and a carving or two? Trifles 
probably, but I might help you do something with 
them.” 

“Trifles! Why, Cary, surely you remember the 
Laughing Duchess? It has been the family treas¬ 
ure for generations, that and the Mercury. It is 
about these things that I want particularly to con¬ 
sult you,” I replied. 

“Well, well,” he said, tolerantly, “I vaguely 
recall the piece. A very nice copy, no doubt, of 
Fierienti’s Duchess.” 

“Copy!” I cried. “Indeed, it is the original 
from which Fierienti made his copy. I can prove 
it from grandma’s records. It is the Fierienti 
thought to have been destroyed in the London fire.” 

He laughed softly. 

“I will have a look at it, Enid. I hate to dis¬ 
illusion you, but old ladies attach exaggerated value 
to their treasures. No doubt your grandmother 
believed in it.” 

“She was your grandmother, too,” I found my¬ 
self murmuring. 

“Surely, surely,” he continued cheerfully, “but 
the things are yours, my dear girl, and it occurred 
to me as an opportunity now for you to raise a little 
something on them.” 

He rang off, and I sat with my head in my 
hands. The Fierienti a copy! 1 could not credit 
it. In spite of the disappointment which the 
mirage of a fortune almost invariably disguises, 
this alluring, laughing little figure’s identity had 
been family history. Three centuries had staked 


THE LAUGHING DUCHESS 


23 


their faiths upon it. Yet, Cary Penwick was an 
expert. ... I paced the floor, assuring myself 
that even experts were not infallible; the Chevalier 
de Russy was an authority, whereas Cary had been 
but a careless boy when he saw the Fierienti. My 
mercurial spirit soared upward again; I refused 
to believe the worst until confronted by it; then I 
would surrender gracefully. I ran to tell Martha 
of the guest’s coming, and found her poised, Ma- 
homet-like, between the ether of joy and the mun¬ 
dane condition of the larder. 

“There’s enough coffee for one, with corn muf¬ 
fins, rice fritters and broiled ham—•” 

“If he asks for truffles, serve the Buddha; if 
for partridge, bring on the Mercury!’’ 

“Eight sticks and two barrels,’’ chanted Mar¬ 
tha, “and I say it’s the Lord who sent him here at 
this time. Maybe he’ll buy that there Duchess at 
your price, miss. But, I can’t heat up the library: 
it would take the whole woodshed, Many’s the 
time, when Mr. Cary wasn’t but ten year old, he 
would climb up on them shelves and pitch the books 
down on me. And eat! Anything this side of a 
tin can that boy could eat.” 

The living room at Brookchase was early Vic¬ 
torian. Its threadbare, flowered carpet, high cor¬ 
nices, brass fender and firedogs, with long mirror 
over them, its harpbacked chairs, and Dickens at 
Gadshill, were free of more modern innovation than 
a brass lamp and the crashing contrast of a tele¬ 
phone. 

By nine o’clock three of the precious logs 
crackled on the andirons, and grandma’s armchair 
was drawn before them. On various pretenses 
Martha peered in the door, like the prompter in 


24 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


the wings, at every few revolutions of the minute 
hand, and latterly found the house owner before 
the mirror, adjusting a stray lock of hair. 

“That gray does become you, Miss Enid, if ’tis 
your grandma’s made down, you being so straight 
and slim. But you didn’t put her pin on. That 
weepin’ wilier is a grand piece!” 

This worshipful object was the cameo of a 
lachrymose female playing the harp over a mortu¬ 
ary urn. “Yet, I don’t know but them amber beads 
has more style!” added Martha. I assured her that 
unless Mr. Cary had changed beyond belief, he 
would be as impervious to beads as to sackcloth; 
and at the moment a motor horn sounded in the 
lane. 

“He has come out early!” I cried, catching up a 
candle and lighting it, while Martha opened the 
outer door, like the warden of a castle, sending a 
beam of light straight into the eyes of a tall, slender 
man on the threshold. 

“Cary! Cary Penwick!” I cried, drawing him 
into the firelight’s glow, where he stood, smiling a 
little behind a dark, Van Dyke beard, and blinking 
a little behind horn-rimmed glasses. Martha hov¬ 
ered with: “Are your feet dry, Mr. Cary? I’d best 
be bringin’ your grandma’s cordial!” 

She hurried off, and I proffered the armchair. 

“How good of you to leave the banquet early,” 
I said, conscious now that an intent, but veiled, 
gaze was studying me. 

“I left it as the lesser attraction,” he said, in a 
reserved voice that gave me a sense of baffled sur¬ 
prise. 

“Why, you do not in the .least resemble your 
voice over the telephone!” I told him. “Telephones 
are so misleading.” 


THE LAUGHING DUCHESS 


25 


“What was it like?” he asked. 

“Rather fat and—clubby/’ I confessed; “but 
you are really like my childhood’s vague dream- 
knight,” I laughed, as Martha reappeared with cor¬ 
dial, in infinitesimal glasses. Inside the door she 
lingered. 

“What of the old Deacon, Mr. Cary? He died, 
of course, poor creature! A body couldn’t help 
bein’ fond of him, for all his ways.” 

“The Deacon, of course”—he looked absently 
in his glass. “Well, his habits killed him, after a 
while. He drank too much, you know.” 

“Then it wasn’t hydrophobia, sir? That was 
a blessing! I never seen a dog more devoted than 
the Deacon was to you, Mr. Cary!” Martha closed 
the door, and my guest stood on the hearth rug, 
smiling gravely, but with an expression best de¬ 
scribed as a listening face. Glancing from ivory 
Buddha to winged Mercury, his look returned to 
me, and lingered, as in indecision. 

“You are looking for the Fierienti,” I smiled 
back; “I am immune to the wiles of collectors.” 

“Guilty!” he said, with the same shy aloofness. 

“But you must see grandma’s last portrait first. 
Brookchase remains primitive enough for candles.” 
I held one under the picture above the mirror. “The 
Chevalier de Russy sketched her in oils, to preserve 
what he called the expression ‘angelique,’ and after¬ 
wards sent me this from France. The eyes always 
follow one with understanding. See how they smile 
upon you, Cary! As though she knew that you 
had fulfilled her pride and faith, and had become 
the honorable man she had aimed to make you in 
spite—” I stopped. His eyes were upon mine, in 
the glass, with profound questioning. “In spite of 
all,” I ended. 


26 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“In spite of all!” he repeated, drawn to grand¬ 
ma’s look, and although aware that when a skeleton 
is safely locked in its closet, it is wise to lose the 
key, I felt the moment to be surcharged with un¬ 
spoken confidence. 

“You remember that she would not admit in¬ 
heritance to be a menace to you, and held that a 
man’s character lay in his own hands.” 

“You mean that because my father happened 
to be—a rascal, I could successfully live over the 
effects?” he asked, impersonally; but the question 
in his eyes caused me to motion him to the easy 
chair, and I sat beside him. 

Prince calls me half irrepressible pagan, and 
Prince has an aggravating way of winning out; 
but there are moments when nothing more romantic 
than the protective hen seems uppermost. There¬ 
fore, I attribute the hour which followed to the sub- 
consciousness, groping to assert its right of divina¬ 
tion. Back of his impersonality lay an expression 
of profound solitariness, an appeal as impassioned 
as it was naive: quickly masked, but revealing som£ 
dumb tragedy of soul. The source mattered noth¬ 
ing to me. Words from a modern philosopher 
swam through my thoughts: “All tormented souls 
are not in Inferno. They sit beside us, smile in 
our faces, devoured by the flame of present tor¬ 
ture. Reach to them the drop of cold water.” 

Imagination’s shuttle began to spin its swift, 
silent threads around this aloof personality, and I 
spoke without restraint of grandma’s enduring, per¬ 
vasive spirituality, and of his boyhood’s promise. 
Gradually, then eagerly, response came, his re¬ 
straint unveiling boyishly under the luxury of sym¬ 
pathy. He talked glowingly of Italy, of uncon- 


THE LAUGHING DUCHESS 


27 


fessed adventure in Egypt, of wandering and won¬ 
der in Sahara, of unexplained mystery in India. 
Conversationally, his proved to be a sentient com¬ 
prehension, finely imaginative and suggestive, and 
momentarily revealing an unsuspected, dual side, 
alien to the wild boy that I had known in childhood. 
At last, I said: 

“Forgive me, but experiencing and appreciating 
life as you do, is it not remarkable that you have 
not married?” 

“No. Some are born to be units,” he paused, 
“and the women I have known have not been like 
you.” 

“Ah, now you shall see the Laughing Duchess!” 
I returned, rising for the candle. 

He smiled down gravely upon me. 

“It has been an unusual hour for me. You 
have caused me to forget time and errand. But, 
now I must look at your things and go.” 

I reminded him of his promise to remain for 
the night at Brookchase, and he cast a wistful 
look around the room, but repeated: 

“It is better that I should, go.” 

Feeling baffled, yet mentally exhilarated, I went 
into the adjoining library, but the cold draft blew 
out my candle. Groping my way back, with the 
little picture, I was arrested by the scene in the 
room beyond. My guest stood with arms folded 
and face lifted to grandma’s portrait, as though, in 
a tense moment, he were asking an impassioned 
question and receiving a benedictory answer. When 
I entered, he turned to examine the Mercury 
through his glass, and presently said: 

“This is undoubtedly a genuine Benvenuto, 
Miss Legree. I believe your fortune lies here!” 


28 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“Miss Legree!” I chided, and he flushed slight¬ 
ly, adding: “Enid.” 

I reminded him that grandma owned only 
originals, and related the history of the Fierienti; 
how it had been painted by the great Italian for 
the queen, who was godmother to the little Laugh¬ 
ing Duchess; how it came into England with the 
eldest son of the duchess, and thence into France 
with a grandson, an emigre from the Revolution, 
who was grandma’s father. 

“It was her treasure, but you, yourself, pre¬ 
vented us from making a fatal mistake,” I smiled 
back to the luring laughter of the picture. “She 
needed money once, almost as badly as—” I 
stopped. In his bladelike glance of comprehension, 
quickly sheathed, lay the perception of a forlorn 
hope in the shape of half a ham and eight sticks of 
wood. “As many do,” I added, tritely. “The 
mortgage was due and I suggested selling this pic¬ 
ture, but the sons of the family had owned it, and 
she wished to wait for your coming, that yours 
might be the decision. You may call it an old 
lady’s over-scrupulous sense of loyalty, but I think 
it very sweet. She sold, instead, the companion to 
the Buddha, and left the Duchess to me. Now, I 
can, in a measure, fulfill her wish. Sell the bronze 
and ivory, Cary, but do as you will about the 
Laughing Duchess.” 

I put the picture in his hands, and he sat under 
the lamp examining it with an expert’s eagerness. 
At last he said: 

“I believe this to be the original Fierienti. Will 
you trust me with it, irrespective of relationship?” 

I said that I would trust him with anything, 
and he smiled, gravely, and took out pen and check- 


THE LAUGHING DUCHESS 


29 


book. “I must feel that you believe me to be act¬ 
ing for your best interest. I confess that I came 
with the intention of buying the picture. Its rec¬ 
ords were hazy where the London fire was con¬ 
cerned, and it is a gem, but the Cellini Mercury 
must be valued by the committee. I will leave you 
a deposit to secure both as my property, and you 
will receive the maximum value after the final esti¬ 
mate is made. But you may withdraw the sale at 
any time during the coming month, by wiring to the 
bank upon which this check is drawn.” 

“You are not—•” I tried to say. 

“Acting merely upon a personal basis? Not in 
the least. I am eager to own the things, but will 
hold them at your disposal for a time.” 

“Then they are yours,” I said. “For I confess 
having intended to sell them to the first collector 
tomorrow. And probably rue it ever afterwards, 
like old Mrs. Mace and her Romney.” 

He rose, frowning darkly. 

“So! You have heard of that nefarious trans¬ 
action? Well,” he added, cryptically, “you may 
have cause to thank old Mrs. Mace’s Romney. Jus¬ 
tice has a strange, inexplicable way of working 
out her problems in spite of us.” 

It was here that the clock struck eleven-thirty. 

“I feel like Cinderella,” I said, my hand in a 
strong clasp which was folding a check in it. “I 
do not want you to go, Cary!” For something told 
me that I should see this brave, elusive personality 
no more. 

“And I astonish myself by not wanting to go,” 
he said. “This room, this hour, will linger like the 
perfume of a dream. Adieu, Cinderella!” 

His lips touched my hand. A motor horn sound- 


30 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


ed sharply. He caught up the antiques and his 
overcoat; there came a rush of cold air, a door 
slammed and the motor rolled off. Then a blinding 
wave swept over consciousness, and for a second 
I saw two lamp flames instead of one. I caught 
at the table, and stood helpless with fact hammer¬ 
ing the thing upon unwilling reason, for, on the 
cuff, lifted to thrust into his coat sleeve, I had seen 
two swastikas, in red Roman gold. 

Then, I knew. 

The smooth, dark head, the slender hand, the 
swastikas, belonged to the man in the adjoining 
booth who had overheard my conversation with 
Prince, even to the Brookchase address. Thought, 
like the wireless, was humming electrically, putting 
together the sinister puzzle, insisting upon me that 
I had been robbed. My fortune was gone; and at 
the same time perverse subconsciousness was whis¬ 
pering: “No! No! No!” 

Like the heroine of a movie melodrama, Martha 
advanced from the door, with face set to tragedy. 
She held out a newspaper, uttering hoarsely: 

“Look! ’Tain’t him!” 

The front page was lavishly decorated with the 
heads of officers of the International Exposition, 
the center one in large headlines: “Cary Penwick, 
vice president.” Martha pointed dramatically to 
the heavy-jowled, baggy-eyed visage, fully illus¬ 
trating the voice over the wire. She looked over 
her shoulder fearfully, and around the room, before 
whispering: 

“That’s him! Then who’s the other one?” 

“Oh, he has gone,” I said, hysterically; “quite 
gone, and everything with him!” 

Martha sank on the nearest chair, and the paper 
fell fluttering to the floor. 


THE LAUGHING DUCHESS 


31 


“I said we’d wake up some mornin’ and find 
ourselves murdered in our beds on account of that 
there Duchess!” she wailed. I laughed helplessly; 
so after all, I was juggled by fate into old Mrs. 
Mace’s successor! I smoothed out the bit of crum¬ 
pled paper, under the light, and read it mechani¬ 
cally. 

“To Enid Legree. . . . Forty thousand dollars. 
. . . Signed Ettere Dantre.” 

Dantre! . . . And Dantre had a wager on with 
Penwick. . . . And somebody had vowed to exhibit 
a Fierienti! And Dantre had cried out about old 
Mrs. Mace’s Romney! What did it mean? . . . 
And that heavy, shifty-eyed countenance in the 
paper. ... I sprang up, as the telephone again 
rang, with hope surging upward. It was the voice 
of the vice president of the Exposition: 

“I could not get out tonight, my dear girl. . . . 
’Fraid you’d wait up. I’ll see you in the morning.” 

The sharp contrast of that voice’s quality en¬ 
hanced the memory of the other. I thanked him, 
and proceeded to play the game. 

“What should you say an original Fierienti 
would bring?” I asked. 

“Your old copy? Well, about two-fifty, as it’s 
you, Enid.” 

“And a genuine Cellini Mercury?” I added. 

“A Cellini? Oh, my dear girl, that is non¬ 
sense! No doubt, though, yours is a nice little 
imitation that ought to bring you as high as fifty 
dollars.” 

I thanked him, and rang off. 

“Martha,” I said, breathlessly, “something tells 
me that we are on the brink of a fortune.” 

Martha shook her head. “You always have 


32 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


been, Miss Enid,” she said. But I went to bed 
with a sense of elation and fearlessness, prompted 
by the memory of a voice. 

At seven the next morning I had Prince over 
the wire. 

“Are you willing to catch the eight-thirty ex¬ 
press, and to stop first and relieve me of a check 
for forty thousand dollars?” I asked. “Stop, you 
will hurt the receiver!” 

After all, an ideal supplanted is hardly over¬ 
thrown. I confess, however, to a day of apprehen¬ 
sion until the rural free delivery handed me a let¬ 
ter. It was consistently terse: 

“When you greeted me as another, I knew that 
it was the only way to insure the safety of your 
valuables. Had you suspected me you would not 
have trusted a stranger. Yours is the right to with¬ 
draw the sale. Otherwise, a check for the maxi¬ 
mum value will go to you. Forgive me, Cinderella, 
and think gently of Dantre.” 

Withdraw it? . . . 

When I ran to the gate at sunset to hear 
Prince’s sequel, it was with high heart, for I felt 
that the day of the lady agent had waned. Martha 
was joyfully trolling a somber tune in the kitchen; 
ahead of me was the radiant vision of a new roof, 
a basket laden for Mrs. Petty, and sticks innumer¬ 
able in the woodshed. The vision materialized, 
when Prince gravely placed a bank-book in my 
hand. His measures had been summary. He went 
first to Penwick’s hotel, and called him up to say 
that his estimate of Miss Legree’s antiques was 
too low; she had sold them. 

“Oh, I am sorry! After all, he was a relative,” 
I said, regretfully. 


THE LAUGHING DUCHESS 


33 


“Stick to the past tense, please,” said Prince, 
briefly. “His language over the wire wasn’t pub¬ 
lishable. He is safer at a distance, and I implied 
as much.” 

“And—Dantre?” I ventured. 

“Banks conjure by that name. You did a won¬ 
derful stroke of business, Enid—for a woman.” 

Had I ? I hid a smile. 

“Dantre is a Richard Burton for wandering, 
and an infallible expert. Collectors swear by him. 
I heard an odd thing about the man today. It 
seems that Dantre is not his name. His father 
was a notorious criminal speculator, and ruined 
many before he served his time in the penitentiary, 
Dantre is equally keen on the trail of tricksters in 
collecting, but the disgrace made a recluse of him. 
He has gone again, and his agent was placing the 
Fierienti on exhibition today. I’ve no doubt that 
he turned up from the end of the earth just to get 
even with—Prince hesitated. “You see, Enid, 
I remembered the name of the collector who bought 
old Mrs. Mace’s Romney. I hated to tell you. It 
was Cary Penwick.” 

But memory swung back to a firelit hour and a 
dark, listening face upon a slender hand, with two 
swastikas— 

“Oh, I am glad it wasn’t Dantre!” I breathed 
to the spring sunset. 

Virginia Woodward Cloud. 


LONG, LONG AGO 

When the brakeman swung back the door and 
with resonant indifference shouted in Esperanto 
“Granderantal stashun,” Galbraithe felt like jump¬ 
ing up and gripping the man’s hand. It was five 
years since he had heard that name pronounced as 
it should be pronounced, because it was just five 
years since he had resigned from the staff of a New 
York daily and left to accept the editorship of a 
small Kansas weekly. These last years had been 
big years, full of the joy of hard work, and though 
they had left him younger than when he went, they 
had been five years away from New York. Now he 
was back again for a brief vacation, eager for a 
sight of the old crowd. 

When he stepped from the car he was confused 
for a minute. In the mining camp at present sub¬ 
stituted for the former terminal he was green as 
a tenderfoot. It took him a second to get his 
bearings, but as soon as he found himself fighting 
for his feet in the dear old stream of commuters 
he knew he was at home again. The heady jostle 
among familiar types made him feel that he hadn’t 
been gone five days, although the way the horde 
swept past him proved that he had lost some of his 
old-time skill and cunning in a crowd. But he 
didn’t mind; he was here on a holiday, and they 
were here on business and had their rights. He 
recognized every mother’s son of them. Neither 


LONG, LONG AGO 


35 


the young ones nor the old ones were a day older. 
They wore the same clothes, carried the same 
bundles and passed the same remarks. The solid 
business man weighted with the burden of a Long 
Island estate was there; the young man in a bro¬ 
ker’s office who pushed his own lawn mower at 
New Rochelle was there; the man who got aboard 
at One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Street was 
there. There was the man with the Van Dyke, the 
man with a mustache, and the fat, smooth-shaven 
man, and the wives, the sisters and the stenog¬ 
raphers of all these. They were just as Galbraithe 
had left them—God bless ’em. 

Swept out upon Forty-second Street, he took a 
long, full breath. The same fine New York sky 
was overhead (the same which roofed Kansas) and 
the same New York sun shone down upon him 
(even as in its gracious bounty it shone upon 
Kansas). The thrill of it made him realize as 
never before that, though the intervening years 
had been good to him, New York was in his blood. 
His eyes seized upon the raw, angular buildings as 
eagerly as an exiled hill man greets friendly moun¬ 
tain peaks. There are no buildings on earth which 
look so friendly, once a man gets to know them, as 
those about the Grand Central. Galbraithe noticed 
some new structures, but even these looked old. 
The total effect was exactly as he had left it. That 
was what he appreciated after his sojourn among 
the younger cities of the West. New York was 
permanent—as fixed as the pole star. It was unal¬ 
terable. 

Galbraithe scorned to take cab, car or bus this 
morning. He wanted to walk—to feel beneath his 
feet the dear old humpy pavement. It did his soul 


36 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


good to find men repairing the streets in the same 
old places—to find as ever new buildings going 
up and old buildings coming down, and the side¬ 
walks blocked in the same old way. He was clumsy 
at his hurdling, but he relished the exercise. 

He saw again with the eyes of a cub reporter 
every tingling feature of the stirring street pano¬ 
rama, from gutter to roof top, and thrilled with 
the magic and vibrant bigness of it all. Antlike, 
men were swarming everywhere bent upon chang¬ 
ing, and yet they changed nothing. That was what 
amazed and comforted him. He knew that if he 
allowed five years to elapse before returning to 
his home town in Kansas he wouldn’t recognize the 
place, but here everything was as he had left it, 
even to the men on the corners, even to the passers- 
by, even to the articles in the store windows. Flow¬ 
ers at the florist’s, clothing at the haberdasher’s, 
jewels at the jeweler’s, were in their proper places, 
as though during the interval nothing had been 
sold. It made him feel as eternal as the Wander¬ 
ing Jew. The sight of the completed public library 
restored him to normal for a moment but, after 
all, the building looked as though it had been long 
finished. A public library always does. It is born 
a century old. 

The old Fifth Avenue Hotel was gone, but he 
wondered if it had ever been. Fie didn’t miss it— 
hardly noticed any change. The new building 
fitted into its niche as perfectly as though it had 
been from the first ordained for that particular 
spot. It didn’t look at all the upstart that every 
new building in Kansas did. 

He hurried on to Park Row, and found himself 
surrounded by the very newsboys he had left. Not 


LONG, LONG AGO 


37 


one of them had grown a day older. The lanky 
one and the lame one and the little one were there. 
Perhaps it was because they had always been as 
old as it is possible for a boy to be, that they were 
now no older. They were crying the same news 
to the same indifferent horde scurrying past them. 
Their noisy shouting made Galbraithe feel more 
than ever like a cub reporter. It was only yester¬ 
day that his head was swirling with the first mad 
excitement of it. 

Across the street the door stood open through 
which he had passed so many times. Above it he 
saw the weatherbeaten sign which had always been 
weatherbeaten. The little brick building greeted 
him as hospitably as an open fire at home. He 
knew every inch of it, from the outside sill to the 
city room, and every inch was associated in his 
mind with some big success or failure. If he came 
back as a vagrant spirit a thousand years from now 
he would expect to find it just as it was. A thou¬ 
sand years back this spot had been foreordained 
for it. Lord, the rooted stability of this old city! 

He had forgotten that he no longer had quar¬ 
ters in town, and must secure a room. He was 
still carrying his dress-suit case, but he couldn’t 
resist the temptation of first looking in on the old 
crowd and shaking hands. He hadn’t kept in touch 
with them except that he still read religiously every 
line of the old sheet, but he had recognized the 
work of this man and that, and knew from what 
he had already seen that nothing inside any more 
than outside could be changed. It was about nine 
o’clock, so he would find Hartson, the city editor, 
going over the morning papers, with his keen eyes 
alert to discover what had been missed during the 


38 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


night. As he hurried up the narrow stairs his 
heart was as much in his mouth as it had been the 
first day he was taken on the staff. Several new 
office boys eyed him suspiciously, but he walked 
with such an air of familiarity that they allowed 
him to pass unquestioned. At the entrance to the 
sacred precinct of the city editor’s room he paused 
with all his old-time hesitancy. After working five 
years under Hartson and then five years for him¬ 
self as a managing editor, he found he had lost 
nothing of his wholesome respect for the man. 
Hartson’s back was turned when Galbraithe en¬ 
tered, and he waited at the rail until the man looked 
up. Then with a start Galbraithe saw that this 
wasn’t Hartson at all. 

“I—I beg pardon,” he stammered. 

“Well?” demanded the stranger. 

“I expected to find Mr. Hartson,” explained 
Galbraithe. 

“Hartson?” 

“I used to be on the staff and—” 

“Guess you’re in the wrong office,” the stranger 
shut him off abruptly. 

For a moment Galbraithe believed this was pos¬ 
sible, but every scarred bit of furniture was in its 
place and the dusty clutter of papers in the corner 
had not been disturbed. The new city editor 
glanced suspiciously toward Galbraithe’s dress-suit 
case and reached forward as though to press a but¬ 
ton. With flushed cheeks Galbraithe retreated, and 
hurried down the corridor toward the reportorial 
rooms. He must find Billy Bertram and get the 
latter to square him with the new city editor. He 
made at once for Billy Bertram’s desk, with hand 
extended. Just beyond was the desk he himself 


LONG, LONG AGO 


39 


had occupied for five years. Bertram looked up— 
and then Galbraithe saw that it wasn’t Bertram at 
all. 

“What can I do for you, old man?” inquired 
the stranger. He was a man of about Bertram’s 
age, and a good deal of Bertram’s stamp. 

“I was looking for Billy Bertram,” stammered 
Galbraithe. “Guess he must have shifted his desk.” 

He glanced hopefully at the other desks in the 
room, but he didn’t recognize a face. 

“Bertram?” inquired the man who occupied 
Bertram’s desk. He turned to the man next to him. 

“Say, Green, any one here by the name of 
Bertram?” 

Green lighted a fresh cigarette, and shook his 
head. 

“Never heard of him,” he replied indifferently. 

“He used to sit here,” explained Galbraithe. 

“I’ve held down this chair for fifteen months, 
and before me a chump by the name of Watson 
had that honor. Can’t go back any farther than 
that.” 

Galbraithe put down his suit case, and wiped 
his forehead. Every one in the room took a suspi¬ 
cious glance at the bag. 

“Ever hear of Sanderson?” Galbraithe inquired 
of Green. , 

“Nope.” 

“Ever hear of Wadlin or Jerry Donahue or 
Cartwright?” 

Green kicked a chair toward him. 

“Sit down, old man,” he suggested. “You’ll 
feel better in a minute.” 

“Ever hear of Hartson? Ever hear of old Jim 
Hartson?” 


40 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“That’s all right/’ Green encouraged him. “If 
you have a line in that bag you think will interest 
us, bring it out. It’s against office rules, but—” 

Galbraithe tried to recall if, on his way down¬ 
town, he had inadvertently stopped anywhere for a 
cocktail. He had no recollection of so doing. 
Perhaps he was a victim of a mental lapse—one of 
those freak blank spaces of which the alienists were 
talking so much lately. He made one more attempt 
to place himself. In his day he had been one of 
the star reporters of the staff. 

“Ever hear of—of Galbraithe?” he inquired 
anxiously. 

By this time several men had gathered around 
the two desks as interested spectators. Galbraithe 
scanned their faces, but he didn’t recognize one of 
them. 

“Haven’t got a card about your person, have 
you?” inquired Green. 

“Why, yes,” answered Galbraithe, fumbling for 
his case. The group watched him with some curi¬ 
osity, and Harding, the youngest man, scenting a 
story, pushed to the front. With so many eyes 
upon him Galbraithe grew so confused that he 
couldn’t find his card case. 

“I’m sure I had it with me,” he apologized. 

“Remember where,you were last night?” in¬ 
quired Green. 

“Just got in this morning,” answered Gal¬ 
braithe. “I—here it is.” 

He drew out a card and handed it to Green. 
The group gathered closer and read it. 

“Harvey L. Galbraithe, Moran County Cour¬ 
ier.” 

Green solemnly extended his hand. 


LONG, LONG AGO 


41 


“Glad to meet you, Mr. Galbraithe. Up here 
on business, or pleasure?” 

“I used to work here,” explained Galbraithe. 
“I came up on a vacation to see the boys.” 

“Used to work on this sheet?” exclaimed Green, 
as though doubting it. 

“I left in nineteen seven,” answered Galbraithe. 

“Nineteen seven,” exclaimed Green, with a low 
whistle. “You are sure some old-timer. Let’s 
see—that’s over fifteen hundred days ago. When 
did you come on?” 

“Just before the Spanish War,” answered Gal¬ 
braithe eagerly. “Hartson sent me to Cuba.” 

Harding came closer, his eyes burning with new 
interest. 

“Gee,” he exclaimed, “those must have been 
great days. Why in thunder can’t Taft stir up a 
little trouble like that? I ran across an old codger 
at the Press Club once who had been with Dewey 
at Manila.” 

He spoke as Galbraithe might speak of the 
Crimean War. He pressed the latter for details, 
and Galbraithe, listening to the sound of his own 
voice, allowed himself to be led on. When he was 
through he felt toothless, and as though his hair 
had turned gray. 

“Those were the happy days,” exclaimed Har¬ 
ding. “The game was worth playing then—eh, 
old man?” 

“Yes,” mumbled Galbraithe. “But don’t any 
of you know what has become of Hartson?” 

“Haydon would probably remember him—” 

“Haydon?” broke in Galbraithe. “Is he here?” 

He looked wistfully about the room to the cor¬ 
ner where the exchange editor used to sit. 


42 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“He died last spring/’ said Green. “Guess he 
was the last leaf on the tree.” 

“He came on five years ahead of me/’ said 
Galbraithe. “He and I did the barrel murders 
together.” 

“What was that story?” inquired Harding. 

Galbraithe looked at Harding to make sure this 
was not some fool joke. At the time nothing else 
had been talked of in New York for a month, and 
he and Haydon had made something of a name for 
themselves for the work they did on it. Harding 
was both serious and interested—there could be no 
doubt about that. That was eight years ago, and 
it stuck out in Galbraithe’s mind as fresh as though 
it were yesterday. But what he was just begin¬ 
ning to perceive was that this was so because he 
had been away from New York. To those living 
on here and still fighting the old game it had be¬ 
come buried, even as tradition, in the multiplicity 
of subsequent stories. These younger men who had 
superseded him and his fellows already had their 
own big stories. They came every day between the 
dawn and the dark, and then again between the 
dark and the dawn. Day after day they came 
unceasingly, at the end of a week dozens of them, 
at the end of the month hundreds, at the end of a 
year thousands. It was fifteen hundred days ago 
that he had been observing the manifold compli¬ 
cations of these million people, and since that time 
a thousand volumes had been written about as many 
tragedies enacted in the same old setting. Time 
here was measured in hours, not years. Only the 
stage remained unchanged. 

Galbraithe stood up, so dazed that he faltered 
as though with the palsy. Harding took his arm. 


LONG, LONG AGO 


43 


“Steady, old man,” he cautioned. “You’d bet¬ 
ter come out and have a drink.” 

Galbraithe shook his head. He felt sudden re¬ 
sentment at the part they were forcing upon him. 

“I’m going back home,” he announced. 

“Come on,” Harding encouraged him. “We’ll 
drink to the old days, eh?” 

“Sure,” chimed in Green. The others, too, rose 
and sought their hats. 

“I won’t,” replied Galbraithe, stubbornly. “I’m 
going back home, I tell you. And in ten years I’ll 
be twenty-five years younger than any of you.” 

He spoke with some heat. Harding laughed, 
but Green grew sober. He placed his hand on 
Galbraithe’s arm. 

“Right,” he said. “Get out, and God bless you, 
old man.” 

“If only Haydon had been here—” choked Gal¬ 
braithe. 

“I expect he’s younger than any of us,” replied 
Green, soberly. “He’s measuring time by eterni¬ 
ties.” 

Galbraithe picked up his bag. 

“S’long,” he said. 

He moved toward the door, and the entire group 
stood stock still and without a word saw him go 
out. He hurried along the narrow corridor and 
past the city editor’s room. He went down the old 
stairs, his shoulders bent and his legs weak. Fif¬ 
teen hundred days were upon his shoulders. He 
went out upon the street, and for a moment stood 
there with his ears buzzing. About him swarmed 
the same newsboys he had left five years before, 
looking no older by a single day. Squinting his 
eyes, he studied them closely. There was Red 


44 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


Mick, but as he looked more carefully he saw that 
it wasn’t Red Mick at all. It was probably Red 
Mick’s younger brother. The tall one. the lanky 
one and the little lame one were there, but their 
names were cNfferent. The drama was the same, 
the setting the same, but fifteen hundred days had 
brought a new set of actors for the same old parts. 
It was like seeing Shakespeare with a new cast, but 
the play was older by centuries than any of Shake¬ 
speare’s. 

Galbraithe hailed a taxi. 

“Granderantal stash-un,” he ordered. 

Peering out the window, he watched the inter¬ 
minable procession on street and sidewalks. He 
gazed at the raw, angular buildings—permanent 
and unalterable. Overhead a Kansas sun shone 
down upon him—the same which in its gracious 
bounty shone down upon New York. 

Frederick Orin Bartlett. 


THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES 

’Ware th’ sparm whale’s jaw, 
an’ th’ right whale’s flukes! 

—Old Whaling Maxim. 

In the old whaling museum on Johnny Cake 
Hill there is a big room with a fireplace where, 
on a rainy or stormy day, the whaling captains like 
to gather; and when storms or cold keep him from 
his rocking chair on the after deck of his Fannie, 
Cap’n Mark Brackett climbs the hill to the old 
museum and establishes himself in a chair before 
the fire. From the windows you may look down a 
short, steep street to the piers where great heaps 
of empty oil casks, brown with the grime of years 
of service, block the way. Tied up to the piers 
there may be an old square-rigger, her top hamper 
removed, and empty so that she rides high in the 
water and curtsies to every gust; and you will see 
squat little auxiliary schooners preparing for the 
summer’s cruising off Hatteras; and beyond these 
the eye reaches across the lovely harbor to Fair 
Haven, gleaming in the sun. 

The old museum is rich with the treasures of 
the sea, and this room where the captains like to 
gather is the central treasure house. An enormous 
old secretary of mahogany veneer stands against 
one wall, and in cases about the room you will find 
old ship’s papers bearing the names of presidents 
a hundred years dead, pie crimpers carved from 


46 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


the solid heart of a whale’s toothy a little chest 
made by one of the Pitcairn Island mutineers, 
canes fashioned from a shark’s backbone or the 
jawbone of the cachalot, enormous old locks, half a 
dozen careful models of whaling craft with the last 
rope and spar in place, and the famous English 
frigate, in its glass case at one side. 

I found Cap’n Brackett there one afternoon, 
in an old chair before the fire, his black pipe hum¬ 
ming like a kettle, his stout body relaxed in com¬ 
fortable ease. He had advised me to read “Moby 
Dick,” and had loaned me the book; and when I 
entered, he looked up, a welcoming twinkle in the 
keen old eyes that lurk behind their ambush of 
leathery wrinkles, and saw the book in my hand. 

“Read it?” he asked, between puffs. 

“End to end,” I assured him. 

“A great book. A classic, I say.” 

I nodded, and drew up a chair beside him, and 
opened the volume to glance again across its pages 
and to dip here and there into that splendid chroni¬ 
cle of the hunt for the great white whale. The 
old man watched me over his pipe, and I looked 
up once and caught his eye. 

“He’s stretching it a bit, of course,” I sug¬ 
gested. “You would never meet the same whale 
twice, in all the wastes of the Seven Seas.” 

The cap’n’s eyes gleamed faintly. “Why not?” 
he asked. 

“It’s too much of a coincidence.” 

“It happens.” 

One certain method to provoke Cap’n Brackett 
to narration is to pretend incredulity. I smiled in 
a wary fashion, and said nothing. 

“There was one whale I saw four times, my¬ 
self,” he asserted. 


THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES 


47 


“How do you know it was the same?” 

“He was marked. . . . And the hand of Fate 
was in it, too.” 

I turned the leaves of the book, and chuckled 
provokingly, watching covertly the captain’s coun¬ 
tenance; and, as I expected, he began presently to 
tell the story that was in his mind. His gruff old 
voice ran quietly along; the fire puffed and flared 
as the wind whistled down the chimney, the snow 
flurried past the windows and hid the harbor below 
us. Cap’n Brackett’s voice droned on. 

“You never heard of Eric Scarf,” the old man 
thoughtfully began. “Not more’n three or four 
men alive now that knew him. He were mate of 
the Thomas Pownal when I knew him; a big, 
straight, fiery man, powerful and strong. He came 
of some Northland breed, with a great shock of 
yellow hair, and eyes as blue as the sea; but he was 
not like most Norsemen in being slow of speech 
and dull of wit. Quick he was; quick to speak, 
and quick to think, and quick to act; quick to anger, 
quick to take hurt, and quick to know Joan for the 
one woman, when she began that v’y’ge on the 
Thomas Pownal. 

“James Tobbey was the captain of the Pownal; 
Joan was his daughter. She was a laughing girl, 
always laughing; a child. Her hair was fine-spun 
and golden, and it curled. When the fog got into 
it, it kinked into ringlets as crisp as blubber scraps. 
You wanted to rub them in your hands, and hear 
them crinkle and crackle between your palms. And 
her voice, when she laughed, was the same way, 
crisp and clean and strong; and her eyes were 
brown. Give a girl light curly hair and dark brown 
eyes, and any man’s heart will skip a beat or so 
at seeing her. 


48 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“She used to be everywhere about the ship, 
always laughing; and little Jem Marvel forever 
hobbling at her heels. Jem was a baby, a little 
crippled baby, the son of a sister of Joan’s who 
had died when Jem was born; and Jem’s father 
was dead before that, although no one knew it till 
the Andrew Thornes came back without him, two 
years after. 

“Thornes had been a hard, bitter man; and little 
Jem took after him. The baby was black—black 
hair, black eyes, a swart skin; and when he dragged 
his withered leg about the deck at Joan’s heels, his 
face worked and grimaced with spleen that was 
terrible to watch. Maybe six or seven he was 
then; and for all Joan tended him like a mother, 
I’ve known him to rip out at her black oaths that 
would rot a grown man’s lips. 

“Cap’n Tobbey kept his eyes away from the 
boy; but Joan loved the little thing. None but her 
could bear with him. 

“Eric Scarf was the only man aboard that ever 
tried to win the baby. I’ve seen him work for 
weeks at some dinkus he was making for the boy, 
only to have Jem scorn it when it was done. He 
put six months of whittling into a little model of 
the Pownal, with every rope in place; and when 
he gave it to Jem at last, the boy smashed it on the 
deck, and stamped upon the splinters. 

“Eric but laughed. The mate was a hard man 
with men, quick with them; but with the child he 
was as gentle as Joan herself. 

“He loved Joan. I loved Joan. Every man 
aboard the Pownal loved the girl; but Eric more 
than most of us. He sought ways to please her, 
and when he bungled it, it was a fight with him to 


THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES 


49 


hide his grief. One of the greenies, when the 
Pownal was but a few days out, bumped against 
the girl in the w r aist of the ship at the lurch of a 
wave; and Eric knocked the man halfway to the 
fo’c’s’le scuttle with one cuff. But while the 
greenie was scrambling to his feet, nursing his 
mouth with one tooth gone, Joan flamed at Eric. 

“ ‘Why was that?’ she demanded, her voice 
very steady and hot. 

“ ‘He bumped you!’ Eric tells her. 

“ ‘I did not complain. Only a coward hits men 
who cannot hit back.’ 

“Eric’s face crimsoned; he whirled to the man. 
‘Here,’ he shouted. ‘Forget I’m the mate. Do you 
want the chance to get even?’ 

“The man stared affrightedly, then ducked 
down the scuttle like a rabbit, with Eric glaring 
after him. But when Eric turned, Joan had gone 
aft without another word, and he was left to grope 
for understanding of her. 

“Scarf was the strongest, quickest man I ever 
saw. He was tall and powerful, and built slim and 
flat like a whalebone spring. He was boiling with 
his own strength all the time. He suffered for a 
vent for it; and he trod the deck on his toes like a 
tiger, his fists swinging, not from any lust for battle 
so much as from the excess of his own power and 
vigor. 

“I’ve seen him set his hands to tackle, and 
brush the fo’mast hands aside, and do three men’s 
work himself for the mere peace and joy it gave 
him to put forth all his strength for a space; his 
shoulders and back and arms would knot and swell 
and bulge with his efforts, and his lungs would 
shout with gladness at the task. 


50 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“Eric was never still. On deck, where others 
would lean against the rail with an eye to the ship 
and their thoughts somewhere off across the water, 
he was always moving, pacing up and down, climb¬ 
ing into the rigging, shifting this and stirring that, 
restless like a caged beast. Something drove him. 
He could not rest. The springs of life and energy 
in the man would have torn him to bits if you had 
held him motionless for an hour. He had to move, 
to act, to do; and when he buffeted the men, it was 
neither native cruelty nor bullying. It was but 
the outburst of his own impatient, restless power. 

“It was a strange thing to see such a man gen¬ 
tling little Jem Marvel, or wooing the boy to a 
romp about the deck; and it was strange to see 
Scarf stand near Joan, watching her, and the 
muscles in him twitching and straining with the 
agony of inaction. Eric worshipped Joan; and she 
bewildered him. He used to plan little pleasant 
surprises for her, and watch her joy at them and 
take his reward in watching. He never spoke love 
to her, never so much as touched her hand unless it 
might be to help her along the deck when the ship 
was wallowing; and when the things he planned 
failed to delight her, a man watching him could see 
that his very soul was writhing. 

“I said Scarf was a quick man, quick of thought 
and quick of deed. But where Joan was concerned, 
he was very dull and slow. He never could learn, 
try as he would, to please her; and his own impo¬ 
tence and his strength combined to drive him to 
feats which he meant for wooing, but which the 
girl abhorred. 

“He trapped a little sea bird once, and made a 
tiny cage for it, and left it for her to find; and 


THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES 


51 


when the girl discovered it, she cried out with pity 
for the captive, and ran on deck with the cage and 
set the little ceature free. Eric Scarf saw her, and 
she knew it was he who had done it, and pitied him. 

“ ‘I’m really grateful/ she said, smiling very 
gently at the big man, ‘but he is so unhappy in a 
cage.’ 

“Eric tried to speak, and saw one of the men 
by the try works grinning at him; so he went for¬ 
ward and drove the man with blows to the knight’s 
heads, and Joan scorned him for days thereafter. 

“I’ve seen a cock pa’tridge ruffle his feathers 
and beat and drum with his wings, all glory and 
strength and vigor in his wooing; and no doubt the 
hen liked it. But if the pa’tridge had tried such 
measures in the courting of a singing thrush, he 
would only have frighted and dismayed her whom 
he sought to please. It was so with Eric. His 
courting would have pleased some women; Joan it 
but disgusted and disturbed. 

“Eric Scarf and I were closer friends than you 
would think; and I knew the big, strong man to be 
as shy and as easy to take hurt as a child. But 
it was his way when he was hurt or shamed to 
strike out at the nearest, and so to those without 
understanding he seemed a mere bully, cruel and 
exultant in his strength. 

“Lucky for us on the Pownal, Scarf delighted 
in the whaling. There was no other -task in the 
world so fitted to the man. So strong he was that 
nothing short of a whale could give him the fierce 
joy of battle which soothed him. He drove his 
men as he drove himself, and they either broke 
under it or became hard-bitten and enduring hands, 
fit to match him. His boat was always first away; 


52 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION . 


and he would strike and kill one whale and then 
another while other officers were content with a 
single catch. I’ve known him to do what few at¬ 
tempt: to lower at night when moonlight revealed 
a spout, and make his kill, and tow the fish to the 
ship by dawn. Cap’n Tobbey never interfered 
with Eric, for the mate was too valuable; and when 
the mate’s watch was on deck, he would lower and 
kill without ever calling the Old Man from his 
cabin at all. 

“I had heard of Scarf before this v’y g e j but 
never watched him work before; and many a time 
I found myself biting my lip and holding the breath 
in my chest at the daring of him. In any weather 
short of a gale, he would lower; and once two boats 
were swamped in lowering before he took the third 
mate’s and got away—and got the whale. 

“With such an officer, and decent luck, a quick 
voyage was sure; and so it was this time. Before 
we’d been out two years, the casks were filled, oil 
was stored in everything that would hold it, and 
the Old Man gave the word to fly the Blue Peter 
and put for home. We threw the bricks of the 
tryworks overboard to lighten ship that much, and 
struck across the South Pacific, fought our way 
around the Horn, and took a long slant north’ard 
toward Tristan. 

“There was no place to store more oil if we 
had it, and we could not try out if we had the 
blubber; so, though we sighted fish now and then, 
we let them go—though I could see Eric was fret¬ 
ting at it, and wishing the ship empty again. 

“For months now, Eric had been wooing Joan 
in his own wild, longing way; but the girl would 
have none of him. He must have known it, and he 


THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES 


53 


bridled his tongue as he could. But the word was 
bound to come some day; and it came at last when 
we were rocking in a calm, with an island two or 
three miles to starboard, and the sun hissing on 
the sea that sighed and swelled like the bosom of 
a sleeping woman whose dreams are troubled and 
disturbed. 

“The ship was idle, the men squatting forward 
in what shade they could discover, and the rigging 
slatting back and forth as the Pownal rocked on 
the long swells. Eric had the deck, the Old Man 
was asleep below, and Joan and the boy, Jem, were 
sitting aft, the girl sewing at something she held 
in her lap. 

“Scarf, with nothing in the world to do, fretted 
and paced about, his eyes never leaving her, and 
a worship in them that all the world could see. 
The afternoon droned away, the Pownal creaked 
and swung in the cradle of the sea, and the sun 
burned down endlessly. Scarf could not bear it. 
He strode across to where the girl sat; and she 
looked up at him to see what he had come for, and 
at the look in his eyes rose quickly to face him, her 
face setting hard. 

“Eric must have seen; but he blundered blindly 
on. The words came awkwardly. He lifted no 
hand to touch her. T love you. I love you/ he 
said, in a dry, husky voice. ‘I love you. I want 
you to marry me.’ 

“Black little Jem looked up at them and, with 
the quick perception of the child, grinned malig¬ 
nantly. Joan’s face turned white beneath the soft 
bronze the sun and wind had given her cheeks. 
She could not help pitying the big man; but she 
could not love him. 


54 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“ ‘I’m sorry, Eric/ she said. ‘I do not love 
you.’ 

“ ‘I love you/ he repeated, as though it were 
an argument he were advancing. 

“ ‘I’m sorry/ she told him again. ‘I’m sorry to 
hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. But I don’t 
love you.’ 

“His eyes were quivering and trembling like 
the raw flesh of a wound, but he stood impassively 
before her, staring down into her eyes, searching 
there for something he would never find. Little 
Jem chuckled, and the sound broke the spell upon 
the man. He turned rigidly away; and as it always 
was with him when his heart was torn, his great 
body clamored for action. His fingers bit at his 
palms. 

“And then one of the boatsteerers, standing in 
the waist, uttered a low ejaculation; and Eric 
turned and saw the man was pointing toward the 
shore, where a misty spout was just dissolving 
against the dark background of the cliffs that 
dipped to the water there. 

“It was the vent Eric wanted for the torment 
that was tearing him. Without a word, he leaped 
to his boat; and his men, well trained, came tum¬ 
bling at his heels. In a minute’s time, Eric had 
caught up some gear that had been removed from 
the boats when the fishing was finished, and gave 
the order to lower. 

“Joan came softly to him. ‘You are not going 
to kill the whale, are you?’ she asked. ‘We have 
no need for it.’ 

“Eric did not hear her; for the boat had split 
the water and was bobbing there below him, and 
he dropped with his men and in a moment was 


THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES 


55 


away. Joan, her eyes burning angrily, watched 
him go; and presently she brought the glass to see 
what was to come. 

“The whale inshore was lying quietly, but Eric 
sent the boat along as though his life hung on suc¬ 
cess. He drove the men till the oars bent like 
whip-shafts; he drove them and he drove himself; 
and they ran fair upon the creature before they 
realized their speed. Then, at Eric’s cry, the boat- 
steerer in the bow leaped up and drove the har¬ 
poons home, and the boat sheered off while Eric 
changed places with the man. 

“They had struck a cow whale, a right whale, 
with a calf not a week old tucked under her fin; 
and the little thing lay there, lifting its tiny spout 
against its mother’s side, its fins feebly fanning. 

“A cow whale is the easiest of game; and there 
is no sentiment in the whaling ships. If the Pownal 
had been empty, she would have been counted clear 
gain. With the Pownal full to brimming, this that 
Eric was doing was mere murderous slaughter. 

“When Eric saw that he was cheated of the 
battle he had craved, a fury seized him. He shout¬ 
ed hoarsely to his boat steerer, and the man swung 
them in alongside the whale. The great mother 
had not stirred, save for a trembling shudder of 
her whole bulk when the irons seized upon her. 
The calf was fighting to escape, but the mother’s 
great fin pinioned it against her side, soothingly, 
assuringly, as though she promised it should be 
safe there. 

“Eric lifted his lance and pierced the mother, 
driving home the steel for six feet into the great 
body; and he withdrew it, and prodded the vitals of 
the whale again and again, with a desperate energy, 


56 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


pouring out the fire of his own strength in his 
efforts. 

“It was like piercing butter with a hatpin; and 
this dull acquiescence on the creature’s part only- 
whetted Eric’s blind rage. When at the last the 
great flukes lifted once, his heart leaped with the 
hope that at the end there might come the struggle 
and the opposition for which he hungered; but 
agony had lifted the flukes, and the bursting heart 
of the mother brought them gently down again, 
never even disturbing the little creature at her side. 

“She died; a thrust killed the calf. The boat 
sheered out; and then the boatsteerer shouted a 
warning from the stern. 

“Eric whirled and saw a great bull whale just 
emerging from the depths; and the whale headed 
for them furiously. 

“I do not say the creature was the dead cow’s 
mate. It would not be strange if this were so; 
but it need not be asserted. I do not say the bull 
attacked the boat. He was badly gallied, he was 
running blindly. 

“But whatever the explanation, he charged 
them; and Eric shouted triumphantly at thought 
that here was the adversary he had desired. 

“The boat steerer swung the boat about to meet 
the onrush; and Eric snatched a harpoon. They 
swerved out of the path of the bull. As he roared 
past them in a smother of foam, Eric sent the har¬ 
poon home. 

“But next instant the smashing flukes struck 
them, and the boat’s whole bottom was driven 
away. Eric chopped the loose line in time to save 
them; and in ten seconds from the appearance of 
the bull, they were to their necks in water, the boat 
beneath them. 


THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES 


57 


“The bull charged on and disappeared. I low¬ 
ered and went after the men in the water; and we 
got them aboard. Eric was reacting from his fury- 
now; he was shamed at what he had done; and he 
looked back once to the body of the cow, about 
which sharks were already fighting, with some¬ 
thing like apology in his eyes. 

“The men were talking. ‘Did ye see the cross 
on the bull’s head?’ the tub oarsman asked; the 
steerer assented. 

“ ‘A white scar in the blubber,’ he agreed. 

“The others nodded; and Eric looked at me 
and said quietly: ‘The old bull was marked.’ 

“It was when we were all aboard again,and Eric 
had changed to dry garments, that Joan came up 
to where he stood with me. Her eyes were blaz¬ 
ing; and little Jem, at her heels, was chuckling 
blackly. 

“ ‘That was murder,’ said the girl, trembling 
with her own anger. 

“Eric flushed, and his head bowed a little. 

“ ‘A cow and a calf—killed uselessly!’ Joan 
exclaimed. 

“The big man, uneasy, shy, not knowing where 
to turn, saw little Jem beside him; and he turned 
to the boy and caught the lad under his arms, and 
swung him high in the air. ‘Up you go!’ he cried, 
trying to laugh. 

“He meant only to start a romp—anything to 
divert the girl’s searing scorn; but the malignant 
spirit of little Jem converted the movement into 
black tragedy. The child screamed indignantly, 
and kicked down at Eric’s upturned face with his 
sound foot. 

“Eric was standing a yard from the rail, his 


58 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


back to it. The kick in his face made him lose his 
balance, and he staggered backward, and before I 
could stir, with the boy extended above his head, 
he had fallen overboard. 

“Joan screamed; and together we leaped to the 
rail. I reached for a coil of rope. The two had 
sunk in a smother of bubbles; and in the second 
that we waited for Eric to fight his way to the 
surface again, a sinister shadow shot like fire along 
the ship’s side, and I saw the flicker of a silver- 
wdiite belly, and heard Joan scream again. 

“The water turned crimson; and then Eric came 
to the surface with empty hands. He dove in¬ 
stantly, furiously; and I got a boat into the water. 
Eric broke to the surface again, his face convulsed 
with the anguish that tore him; and two of us 
grabbed him and dragged him, fighting, into the 
boat. 

“ ‘Let go, let go,’ he screamed, and struck us 
back. ‘Let me go. I can get him.’ 

“He was mad; and we caught him, and he broke 
and dropped, sobbing, in the bottom of the boat. I 
saw that one of his arms was rasped raw by the 
shark’s rough skin. 

“Joan met him like a fury when he stepped 
upon the deck again, and I thought she would strike 
him. He stood before her, drooping and crushed; 
and the girl caught herself. But I heard the word 
she said. 

“ ‘Thrice murderer!’ she told him softly. 
‘Thrice murderer! A mother and child—and now 
my baby! Oh curse you, curse you! May you be 
always accursed until you die!’ 

“She held him for a moment, and then turned 
away from the man; and Eric Scarf drooped sick 


THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES 


59 


and weak where he stood, until I dragged him 
below to tend his wounded arm.” 

The old man paused, and stared into the fire; 
and w r hen I had waited fruitlessly for another word 
from him, I asked: 

“Is that all?” 

He looked up at me quietly. “No,” he said. 
“No—that is not the whole of it.” 

Still he did not continue, and so I prompted 
him. “You said the whale was seen four times,” 
I suggested. 

He nodded; and so drifted into his story again. 
“Aye, four times,” he agreed. “The old bull with 
the cross upon his skull. Four times. I’ve but 
told the first.” 

He puffed silently for a little, shifted his great 
bulk in the chair, rose and crossed to the window 
to look down toward the harbor, and returned at 
last to me. 

“Joan kept to her cabin much, from that day,” 
he said. “She kept to her cabin; and Eric Scarf 
did his tasks and held aloof from her. We came 
smoothly northward, and presently were at our 
pier, unloading the casks that filled our holds. Eric 
had slowly recovered something of the old strength 
and power that moved him; and though he avoided 
the girl, and though I could see how he suffered 
and what agony he was enduring, he kept a steady 
face to the men, and drove them as he always 
drove. 

“Cap’n Tobbey was a quiet, stern man; but he 
was just. He blamed Eric for taking out the boat, 
but he knew the other for what it was, an accident 
of Fate; and when time came for the next cruise, 
Eric was too good a man to stay ashore. He 
shipped as mate, and I was second mate again. 


60 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“This time, Joan stayed behind. She had had 
enough of the sea for a lifetime, she told me; and 
from a girl, she was become a woman. Lovely as 
ever, her laughter as sweet and crisp as a spring- 
wind, yet there was a depth in her that had not 
been there before, and at times her eyes shrank as 
though they gazed upon awful, tragic happenings. 

“She was on the pier the day we sailed; and I 
saw Eric Scarf watching her with the hopeless 
longing in his eyes that tears at the vitals of a 
man. 

“There was a shadow over the mate from the 
beginning of that cruise. Any man could see it; 
and the fo’mast hands used to watch him, and whis¬ 
per among themselves. Outwardly he was the 
same; strong and quick and proud, alive, alert, his 
body uplifted with the energy it housed. He trod 
the decks lightly, he moved with the quick jDrecision 
of an animal; and he plunged into his work in a 
fashion that would have worn another man to 
threads. 

“A sprinkling of our old crew was aboard; so 
Eric’s story was no secret. But it was never men¬ 
tioned by him or in his presence. He seemed to 
find a joy in his toil that allowed him to forget; 
and the man’s eyes brightened and his cheeks set 
in their old firm, fine lines as we drove southward. 
There is no better index to a man than the cheeks 
of him. Flabbiness of body or soul shows quickest 
there, and there all other vices and all virtues first 
appear. Eric’s face was neither gaunt nor round, 
but it had a chiseled perfection of contour that was 
like a song. 

“There is a deal of superstition that hangs 
about the sea; and a whaler has her share of it, and 


THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES 


61 


more. But it is never allowed to interfere with the 
work at hand. And so if the men wished Eric off 
the ship, they kept their wishes to themselves; and 
if they were reluctant to serve in his boat, they hid 
this reluctance. For Eric was a quick man, quick 
to anger, with a quick fist to him. In his place, 1 
should have moved tremblingly, fearful of a blow 
from behind during the watch on deck at night. 
But Eric strode fearlessly about the ship; and none 
laid hand to him. 

“The sea is a grim thing, and inscrutable. No 
man can look out across its smooth bosom day and 
day, and remember the vast multitude of lives 
which go their way beneath that smiling surface, 
without a sense of the mystery and wonder of it all. 
The sea in a storm may be terrible and appalling, 
when its broad expanse is cut up into myriad gul- 
leys and mountains in which the ship is lost as in a 
labyrinth; but to me it has always been even more 
terrible and menacing when it is calm. In time of 
storm, its fury rages without curb; the worst is 
with you. But when the sea is quiet, all its ener¬ 
gies hidden, it is like the smiling mask of Fate 
which conceals unguessed and unpredicted blows. 

“Thus, when we sailed southward over smooth 
and smiling seas, I fell victim to unrest that 
harassed me. I rose and looked abroad each day 
wfith eyes that searched eagerly for a threat of the 
fate that seemed impending; and even as I watched 
the sea, in like manner did I watch Eric Scarf, to 
discover if I could what it was that hung so threat¬ 
eningly over the man’s smiling head. 

“If Eric felt any uneasiness, he gave no sign at 
first. He was as he had always been, confident, 
and quick, and strong. But the day came when a 


62 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


hint was given us, just as the impalpable atmos¬ 
pheric changes reveal through the glass the ap¬ 
proach of storm. 

“We had sighted whales more than once, and 
made a fair beginning on the long task ahead of 
us; and then one day in the South Atlantic, the 
boats were lowered for a pod that lay far off to 
southward. Eric got fast, and the third mate like¬ 
wise. But the whale I had chosen as my goal took 
alarm, and whirled toward us, and then fled before 
our irons could reach him. 

“There had been time, however, for us to see 
upon his head a dull scar, in the form of a cross, 
and I heard a cry from Eric’s boat, that was just 
getting fast, and turned to see Eric staring toward 
the spot where the old bull had disappeared. 

“Then I remembered what the men had said 
about the whale which had stove Eric’s boat after 
the kill on the other voyage; and when we were 
aboard again, the cutting-in done, and the tryworks 
boiling and smoking, I was not surprised that Eric 
came to me. 

“ ‘Mark,’ he whispered huskily, ‘was there a 
cross on the bull thaf got away?’ 

“I nodded. ‘On his head,’ I said. . ‘An old 
scar, gouged into the blubber.’ 

“I saw his jaw set hard. ‘It can’t be!’ he ex¬ 
claimed, half to himself. I said nothing; and he 
looked at me a moment later, with an agony of 
doubt in his eyes. 

“ ‘Well, what of it, Eric?’ I asked, knowing, 
but thinking that to talk might ease the man. 

“ ‘It was a scarred bull stove my boat—that 
day,’ he told me. 

“ ‘Every old bull has his scars,’ I said easily. 


THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES 


63 


“ ‘Aye—but—this was the same, Mark!’ 

“ ‘What matter?’ 

“He flushed and stammered like a child. ‘Her 
curse is on me/ he declared. ‘The old bull is going 
to wait for me!’ 

“ ‘He’ll suffer by it/ I laughed. ‘He’s a fat old 
duke, too.’ 

“Eric looked forward where the men were 
working, and looked aft, and then out across the 
sea; and then he looked at me at last with an ap¬ 
peal in his eyes. ‘Are you calling me “murderer” 
as she did, Mark?’ he asked. 

“I shook my head. ‘She’s but a girl/ I told 
him. ‘There was no need of killing the cow. But 
what matter for that? And the other—was no 
one’s blame.’ 

“His hand gripped my arm till I winced. ‘You 
mean it?’ he begged, hungrily. 

“I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Forget it all/ 
I urged. ‘No harm will come.’ 

“ ‘It is not that I’m afraid,’ he told me swiftly; 
and I saw that I had roused him as I hoped to do. 

“ ‘Sure of that?’ I asked. 

“His eyes flamed. ‘I fear nothing,—except 
myself/ he exclaimed. ‘But I hear her word al¬ 
ways; and I cannot bear it, Mark.’ 

“Before more, could be said, Cap’n Tobbey came 
toward us; and Eric laughed as though at some jest 
of mine. His laughter was not a pleasant thing 
to hear, and I would have wished to reassure the 
man. But thereafter he gave me no further op¬ 
portunity. 

“I could see the thing was on his mind through 
the days that followed. He could not forget it; 
and he took to standing watch at the masthead 


64 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


when there was no need. I asked him once why 
he did this. 

“ ‘To get the scarred bull, Mark/ he told me. 
‘That will end it.’ 

“ ‘You’ll never see him again!’ 

“He shook his head, and smiled grimly. ‘No 
fear/ he said. ‘He’s about us.’ 

“And Eric was right; for the day we were 
finishing the trying out, the scarred bull was sight¬ 
ed again, this time so near the ship that his mark 
could be discerned through the glass as he rose to 
spout. Eric was aloft; and he tumbled down the 
rigging like a madman, and lowered; but there was 
a fog, and in the fog the bull was lost for that time. 

“That was thrice he had been seen; and the 
fourth time came swiftly. 

“Eric was never a man to fear or avoid conflict, 
even with the forces of the universe itself; and 
after this third appearance of the scarred bull 
whale, he scarce slept at all, but held himself and 
his boat’s crew ready for battle the day long. He 
was aloft from dawn till dark, endlessly scouring 
the seas for a spout that would reveal the creature 
which personified to him the thing he was fighting. 
He became silent, thoughtful; and strength flowed 
into him and nerved him to a hard and efficient 
readiness. He was like an athlete in training for 
a contest, every nerve and muscle tuned. 

“We sighted the scarred whale for the fourth 
time on a Sunday morning; a day when the sea was 
just rippled by the gentlest breezes, when the sun 
shone warmly and comfortingly upon the world, 
when the boats danced upon the waves with a sooth¬ 
ing and caressing motion. The water was blue as 
turquoise, and the sky above it; and the two met at 


THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES 


65 


the horizon with the sea’s deeper blue below the 
sky’s, and the whitecaps gleaming like silver in the 
wind. 

“It was not Eric who sighted the whale, but one 
of the men on the foret’gallant crosstrees; and his 
long ‘Blo-o-o-o-o-ow’ came droning down to us on 
the decks and snatched each one to his post like 
machinery. Cap’n Tobbey turned his glass on the 
distant spouts, and ordered the boats away; and 
Eric’s hard and seasoned men made his boat swing 
ahead of the others instantly, and steadily increase 
the lead. 

“There was no way of knowing whether or no 
this was the old, scarred bull; but his spout told 
us it was a right whale, and not a sperm whale. 
Nevertheless, either Eric knew it was his enemy he 
went to meet, or else he was eager to discover 
whether it was or no, for he drove his men unspar¬ 
ingly, and was more than a quarter of a mile ahead 
of us when he reached the monster, and ran along¬ 
side. 

“Over the water came to us the sound of his 
shouted command: ‘Let ’im have it!’ And I jsaw 
the boat steerer, standing in the bow with his knee 
in the clumsy-cleat, put all the strength of back 
and arms into the stroke, and snatch the second 
iron and send that home even as the whale leaped 
forward. 

“While Eric and the boat steerer were changing 
places, the great whale up-ended ponderously, his 
flukes lifting gently toward the sky full thirty feet 
clear of the water, and slid down out of sight. He 
had sounded; and I spurred my men to harder 
efforts so that we might be at hand to help if need 
arose. 



66 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“Ahead of us, the boat lay idle on the waves. 
I could see Eric in the bow, his hand on the line 
where it ran through the notch, bending to peer 
down into the depths; and I could see he was put¬ 
ting a strain upon the line, for the bow was down 
and almost dipping in the waves. 

“Then suddenly the bow bobbed up, the strain 
relaxed; and Eric bent further over in an effort to 
pierce the depths below him. The whale was com¬ 
ing up; and if by chance he came up under the 
boat, the fight would be done, forthwith. Eric 
shouted a command; and the men began to haul in 
the line desperately, dropping it in a loose coil 
astern. The boat steerer leaned upon his long oar, 
alert,, bending to hear the word from Eric, and him¬ 
self looking overside for any sign of the monster 
who was rushing up from the depths toward them. 

“Then a shout from Eric, the boat swung 
around as though on a pivot; and next instant the 
whale breached between his boat and mine. 

“There is no more splendid sight in the world 
than this; to see the biggest creature that breathes 
flinging his four or five score tons clear out of the 
water to hang, a black bulk against the sky, for 
an instant before he falls resoundingly. Imagine 
a leaping trout, magnify the trout’s size a million¬ 
fold or more, and you have some faint notion of 
the monstrous majesty and grace of the breaching 
whale. 

“I had seen whales breach before, sometimes 
with terror, sometimes with wonder at the beauty 
of the spectacle; but when this whale leaped clear 
into the sky and seemed to hang for an instant fair 
above us, a thrill of horror shot through me. 

“For as he was in the air, fair for all to see, 


THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES 


67 


the scar upon his head was revealed; a scar like a 
sunken cross, mark of some ancient wound. It was 
the scarred bull to which Eric’s boat was fast. 

“I looked toward him, and saw that Eric had 
seen the scar; but Eric loved battle. He shouted to 
his men, and even as the great whale fell into the 
water again, Eric’s men hauled in till they were 
alongside the monster, and Eric drove home his 
lance. 

“The whale, at the prick of steel, redoubled the 
furious struggle of the breach; and he rolled away 
and away from the boat, upon the surface, in a 
smother of foam and spray. The men were 
forced to loose the line again to avoid capsizing; 
but Eric himself set his hand to it, and by his own 
strength held the nose of the boat so near the 
rolling whale that when the enormous creature 
straightened out at last to run, half a dozen pulls 
brought them again alongside. 

“They were in some fashion safer there than 
elsewhere. The harpoons had struck well behind 
the fin, and the whale’s rolling had wrapped the 
line about him in such fashion that when the boat 
pulled alongside it lay safely behind the fin, and 
yet safely forward of the flukes. If the whale 
rolled toward them, they would be crushed beneath 
his bulk; but short of such a move, the monster 
could not shake them off. 

“And Eric was working his lance like mad. I 
had never seen such frantic energy. He sent the 
six-foot steel to its length into the soft body again 
and again, not with a long shove, but with a single 
stabbing thrust to each attack. His target was the 
whale’s greatest girth, and the lower part of the 
body; and although the battle seemed an endless 


68 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


flurry and strife of bloody foam, it was only a mat¬ 
ter of seconds before the whale’s labored spouting 
crimsoned—sure sign he had received a mortal 
wound. 

“I caught the sound of an exultant shout from 
Eric, and his boat sheered away. The monster had 
suddenly halted in its flight; it lay momentarily 
motionless, as though testing its own strength 
against this attack which had pierced its vitals. 
Then in a desperate and panic stricken flurry it 
leaped forward and away, the boat, with line run¬ 
ning free, trailing safely behind. 

“They drove past where my boat lay; and Eric 
turned to look toward me. He was a heroic figure 
in the bow of the little craft, erect and tall, his 
bright hair and his naked torso crimson with the 
flood from the whale’s bloody spout. He was 
gleaming wet with spray and red foam; and he 
waved his long lance as he passed and shouted: 

“ ‘The scarred whale, Mark! I’ve killed him!’ 

“Before I could reply, he was beyond the sound 
of my voice; and then the great beast whirled and 
came back toward us. He must have seen my boat 
and supposed it that of his tormentor; for he 
charged at us, and only the swiftest swerve took 
us out of his path, in time. Beyond me, I saw him 
wallow over the third mate’s boat and on; and I 
hurried to pick up the men in the water. 

“Save for their bruises and their drenching, 
they were uninjured. We dragged them aboard, 
set a waif in the boat, tied its oars to keep it afloat, 
and set out after Eric and the whale. The great 
creature was circling in its last flurry; and as we 
drew near, with a tremendous spasm it threw its 
mighty bulk in a swift, short circle, and was still. 


THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES 


69 


“We drove ahead, toward Eric’s boat; and 
Eric’s countenance was burning with a splendid 
triumph. This last moment of victorious pride 
Fate allowed him. 

“He was ahead; his boat ran alongside the huge 
carcass, and Eric bent over the bow with the short 
boat spade to cut a hole in the whale’s tail for tow¬ 
ing it to the ship. 

“The boat spade is a steel blade, razor sharp, 
spade-shaped, attached to a stout wooden handle. 
Eric leaned far out and drove it into the tough 
fiber of the tail. 

“And then the right whale’s flukes whirled in a 
last, spasmodic struggle; up they whirled, and 
over, and down. They missed the boat by inches; 
but from Eric’s strong hands the boat spade was 
torn. It twisted in the air, its steel blade flashing 
crimson. Under the blow of the flukes it twisted 
and sang, and then chocked home. The steel struck 
Eric squarely in the face; and it split his skull as 
you split a walnut.” 

The old captain leaned forward to knock the 
dottel from his pipe upon the andirons, and settled 
in his chair again. For a little time we sat without 
speaking; but I asked at last: 

“Joan—did she forgive him in the end?” 

Cap’n Brackett’s grim old countenance soft¬ 
ened. “Oh, aye,” he said. “She’d forgiven him 
before. She warned me when we started on the 
cruise to watch over him.” He filled and lighted 
his ancient pipe again, then softly finished: “She’s 
gone, long since. But our daughter looks very like 
her now.” 


Ben Ames Williams. 


WHEN BREATHITT WENT 
TO BATTLE 

“Bloody” Breathitt has been exempted from the 
draft. So prompt and general was the response of her 
fighting men to the call for volunteers, that her quota is 
more than filled. There is no need of conscription. 
Thus does the outlaw mountain county of Kentucky 
vindicate herself in the eyes of the world, mocking those 
who would shame her with a record more fanciful than 
true. —News Item. 

Breathitt was at peace. 

As the Cumberland sun climbed over the east¬ 
ern hills, bringing the rugged flush of morning to 
each crag and ridge and peak, a travel-worn rider, 
astride an even more worn mare, drew up at the 
stile in front of a four-room log cabin. On the 
rider’s smooth, strong features were marks of a 
sleepless night, emphasized by a tense foreboding. 
As he stopped, his mare heaved a shuddering sigh 
of exhaustion and lowered her head in weary relief; 
the man bent one booted leg over the pommel of 
his saddle, and with an expression of pity gazed 
at the cabin for some moments before he called. 

“Hallo!” There was no response from within 
the chinked walls; only the snarl of a cur, that 
skulked near the rickety porch, and the lonesome 
tinkle of a cowbell from the barn lot. 

Again, “Hallo!” This time, after half a min¬ 
ute, the heavy front door opened on its wooden 
hinges and a mountaineer, with untrimmed, griz- 


WHEN BREATHITT WENT TO BATTLE 71 


zled mustache, stepped out into the morning sun¬ 
shine. 

“Wal, if hit ain’t Lawyer Todd—howdy!” The 
old man’s face glowed with cordiality as he ap¬ 
proached the stile. 

“Git off yer mare and come in, lawyer,” he in¬ 
vited. “We’ve jest ate, but Lizzie’ll have ye some 
breakfast in a jiffy. Leave yer critter right thar 
and come on in.” 

“Thank you, Seth, but I reckon I won’t for a 
while.” Lawyer Todd tried to smile in answer to 
the welcome, but his eyes were grave. 

He was a man of middle age and some little 
refinement of appearance, in spite of the mud that 
now besplotched him. A native of the Kentucky 
Mountains, he had taken his degree at a college 
in the Blue Grass, but had returned to the hills to 
practice among his own people. He was one of 
them: he knew their ways, their faults, their vir¬ 
tues, their peculiarities, and of Seth Brannon he 
was particularly wise. Ever since hanging out his 
shingle at the county seat, Todd had been his legal 
adviser whenever Seth had seen fit to waive the 
local militant manner of settling disputes and rely 
upon the instruments of law and order. Between 
the two men there existed a feeling that was more 
than professional. Seth, while many years his 
senior, made Todd his confidant, looked up to him 
with the deference due superior wisdom, and knew 
that his trust was not misplaced. In return Todd 
gave sympathetic understanding to this primitive 
man of the hills, respected his traditions, and stood 
by him in time of trouble. 

It was this bond between friend and friend, 
rather than between lawyer and client, that had 


72 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


drawn Todd over long, hard miles through the most 
isolated and inaccessible part of that Kentucky 
county which bears the title “Bloody.” 

Todd did not dismount from his mare; and old 
Seth, squatting on the stile block, regarded him 
keenly with eyes much used to the analysis of their 
fellow-men. 

“What’s on yer mind, lawyer?” he inquired. 
“ ’Pears like all ain’t good news ye’ve brung over 
the hills with ye.” 

He took in at a glance the mud-caked legs and 
belly of the mare, and the blue clay drops that had 
sprayed and dried on the lawyer, from his leather 
boots to his gray slouch hat. 

“Ye must ’a’ come a long piece, from the looks 
o’ ye,” Seth resumed with friendly concern. “Shore- 
ly, now, ye ain’t rid all the way from Jackson 
town?” 

“Yes,” Todd answered, “that’s what I have.” 

“And what fer?” 

The lawyer reached to an inside pocket and 
drew out a yellow envelope, the flap of which had 
been torn open. With a slowness that was almost 
hesitancy, he handed the envelope to the old man. 

“The operator at Jackson gave that to me, 
Seth,” said Todd. “He knew I sorta attended to 
matters there in town for you and that I’d see you 
got it. It came just after dark yesterday, and I’ve 
been riding ever since to bring it to you—and break 
the news.” 

Seth scratched his mustache with a calloused 
forefinger, turning the yellow envelope over and 
over and looking at it with curiosity. 

“What is hit?” he asked. “Ye know—ye know, 
lawyer, readin’ ain’t one o’ my strong p’ints, and 


WHEN BREATHITT WENT TO BATTLE 73 


these here printed things don’t mean nothin’ to 
me. What’s hit all about?” 

“It’s a telegram, Seth, a telegram—about Jim.” 

“About Jim—my Jim?” The old man groped 
for a moment. “Why, lawyer, Jim knows his pa 
can’t neither read or write. What’d Jim send me 
a teleygram fer?” 

“Jim didn’t send it. It came through the Ca¬ 
nadian War Department, at Ottawa.” Todd 
braced himself in his saddle. “Seth, when Jim 
went away, did you ever reckon you mightn’t see 
him again?” 

The old man’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t reckon 
much about hit a-tall,” he said. “Fact is, Jim went 
withouten my lief and agin my best jedgment.” 
He paused, but as the lawyer made no reply, went 
on: 

“Ye see, Jim ’as plumb crazy to go to war, 
soon as he heard hit had broke loose over yan. 
But I says, says I, ‘Jim, this ain’t none o’ our war; 
hit’s a-happenin’ way outside o’ these mountings 
w r har ye ain’t got no business. I’m a ole man and 
I’ve come to love peace. Ten year ago, after we’d 
fought and fought and finally whopped the Allens, 
over on South Fork, I swore thar’d be no more war 
if I could help hit. And I’ve purty well kept my 
word. Now, Jim,’ says I, ‘this feller Keeser and 
his Germins ain’t hurt we’uns. I ain’t got nothin’ 
agin ’em. And, what’s more, I don’t want ye or 
no other Brannon o’ the name to be startin’ trouble 
with sech people.’ 

“ ‘Pa,’ says J^im, ‘I ain’t a-goin’ to start trou¬ 
ble. Keeser’s already started hit. He and his 
Germins done sunk a lot o’ ships and kilt a whole 
mess o’ wimmen and chil’ren, some of ’em Ameri- 


74 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


kin wimmen and chil’ren too. The English and 
the French been a-figlitin’ him over thar fer nigh 
on two year. Now hit looks like this country’s 
a-goin’ to take a hand. The army men at Wash¬ 
ington says thar jest ain’t no way o’ our gittin’ 
’round fightin’ Keeser; either we got to help lick 
him over yan in Eurip or he’ll lick us over here.’ 

“ ‘Then let him come on over and try hit/ says 
I. ‘I ain’t shot skunks and Allens and wildcats all 
my life fer nothin’/ says I. ‘The same ole rifle-gun 
my granddaddy brung up from North Calliney and 
kilt Injuns with ain’t so rusty and no ’count that I 
can’t shoot a few shoots at this Keeser feller and 
his Germins. 

“ ‘But, Jim/ I says, ‘Jim, ye know a mounting 
man fights best on his own ground. Hit ain’t in 
nature fer him to go scrappin’ on furren soil 
amongst furreners. Up a hillside, behind a bunch 
o’ laurel, is a heap better place fer a mounting man 
than in them trenches yer talkin’ about. Fust o’ 
all/ says I, ‘I’m fer peace; but if ye’ve got to fight, 
then stay home and fight nigh yer own front door.’ 

“Them’s exactly the words I spoke to him, law¬ 
yer,” continued Seth, cramming a handful of to¬ 
bacco into his mouth. “Wait till somebody’s hit 
ye, then hit back and hit back damn hard. But 
don’t go meddlin’ ’round in a country ye don’t 
know nothin’ about, ’mongst folks what ain’t no 
kin to ye. That’s what I says, jest about them very 
words.” 

“And yet Jim went,” said Todd. “Those two 
years you gave him at Berea College, Seth, made 
Jim more thoughtful than most boys hereabouts. 
He read war, he studied war; and, impatient at the 
delay of his own government in getting into it, he 


WHEN BREATHITT WENT TO BATTLE 75 


went up to Canada, enlisted in her armies and 
shipped to France—” 

“Yas, that ’as the way hit was,” assented the 
old man. “All his ma and me could do couldn’t 
keep that boy from goin’ oncet he’d sot his head 
on hit. 

“That ’as ’most a year ago. Course we miss 
Jim and all that,” Seth added; “but even if he has 
gone to war agin’ Keeser and his Germins, the rest 
o’ us here ain’t bearin’ no grudge toward ’em so 
long as they leaves us in peace.” 

“They aren’t leaving you in peace, Seth; that’s 
just it.” Todd watched him closely to see the effect 
of his words. “Already when Jim enlisted ‘Keeser 
and his Germins’ had killed American citizens by 
the score. Since then they’ve killed other Ameri¬ 
cans ; helpless, unoffending people who believed as 
you do that because they hadn’t harmed the Ger¬ 
mans, the Germans wouldn’t harm them. 

“You had some reason for opposing Jim’s en¬ 
listment. We weren’t at war with Germany then. 
He was under no personal or patriotic obligation 
to fight. He acted mostly from the urge of con¬ 
science, I know, and after much far-sighted de¬ 
liberation. But now it’s different, Seth. Last 
week our men in Washington declared war on Ger¬ 
many. We’ve got to fight as a nation whether as 
individuals we want to fight or not. Otherwise 
your rifle-gun and mine, and all the rifle-guns in 
these mountains, won’t save our homes and our 
women and children once the Germans land in this 
country. Don’t you see how it is, Seth? Our boys 
have to go to war, to save from war those who are 
left behind. Don’t you feel differently now about 
Jim’s going the way he did?” 


76 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


The old man shook his head stubbornly. “I 
tell ye, lawyer, hit ain’t any o’ our war. What 
happens outside o’ these hills don’t consarn me and 
my folks. What happens amongst these hills we 
can take care of when hit comes. Let them as 
wants to fight, fight. We’uns don’t axe nothin’ o’ 
other folks and other folks ain’t got no business 
axein’ nothin’ o’ us. That’s whar hit stands with 
me, lawyer.” 

“Listen, Seth.” Todd leaned toward him from 
his saddle. “You know, the people outside of 
Breathitt don’t think much of us who live here. 
Not only in other parts of Kentucky, but in all the 
other states and even abroad, they call us ‘Bloody.’ 
That’s because we’ve been a bit too handy with 
our guns. We’ve killed too many of our own folks. 
We haven’t paid much attention to the law. Now 
this war gives us a chance to show the outside 
world that there’s more good than bad in us; that 
we can leave off fighting each other and use our 
lead on the Germans.” 

Todd leaned closer to the old man, enthusiasm 
in his voice. “Listen, Seth. The President wants 
volunteers for the army. He’s got to have soldiers, 
lots of them. And the best soldier material in the 
country is right up here in these hills. We men 
of Breathitt are born to the trigger. Most of us 
soldier in a manner all our lives. Now, I say, we’ve 
got to stop aiming our rifle-guns at each other and 
point ’em toward the enemy. I’ve been thinking 
about it considerably lately and I want your help in 
bringing this very thing to pass. 

“You, Seth, have more influence with the people 
than any one man in this county. You’re connected 
by-family to every big clan in Breathitt. When 


WHEN BREATHITT WENT TO BATTLE 77 


you say peace, they keep the peace; when you say 
war, they fight. For years now there’s been no 
general trouble. That’s because, as you. declared, 
war don’t pay. And you’re right, indeed you are, 
where feud wars are concerned. We’ve had enough 
of them, God knows!” 

Todd continued: “Seth, they’re framing a draft 
bill there in Washington. They’re going to make 
men join the army if they won’t join it voluntarily. 
Now our boys never had to be kicked into battle, 
Seth. They’ve got the good old Kentucky warrior 
blood in their veins; and the better the cause, the 
harder they fight. Let’s show the country that 
Breathitt isn’t as bad as printer’s ink has painted 
her. Let’s not wait for that draft bill. Tell your 
men, Seth, that this is the worst war and the best 
war that ever happened. Tell ’em it’s the most 
wicked war and the holiest war in which a Ken¬ 
tuckian was ever privileged to draw a bead. Say 
the word, old friend, and every son of Breathitt 
will rally to the flag, to wipe the stains from their 
own hills and help clean the world’s slate for the 
universal writing of the name Democracy!” 

Again old Seth shook his head. He waved his 
hand with a gesture of finality, then brought his 
fist to his knee with a dull thud. 

“Yer a mighty purty talker, lawyer, and I ’low 
ye means what ye says—but, I tells ye, I ain’t got 
no consarn in this here war. Keeser and his Ger- 
mins ain’t done nothin’ to me and my folks. Them 
men o’ Breathitt who wants to fight, can fight. I 
won’t stop ’em. But, lawyer, I ain’t a-goin’ to call 
’em to war till that feller Keeser makes the fust 
move agin one o’ us. That’s what I says to Jim 
and that’s what I’m a-sayin’ to ye,” he added 
defiantly. 




78 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


Lawyer Todd said nothing. He knew the met¬ 
tle of his people. He believed in them. He also 
knew that old Seth was a victim of isolation and the 
teachings of a primitive creed; that his opposition 
sprang from ignorance, not disloyalty. It was the 
inborn nature of a mountaineer to prefer battle 
among his own hills, whose every rock and peak 
and cove he had studied with an eye to offense and 
defense, rather than wage war in the enemy’s coun¬ 
try where he was a stranger. Besides, as Seth 
himself had said, the Brannons and their kin had 
not yet smelled blood. “Keeser and his Germins” 
must first offer direct injury to one of them before 
they could feel the personal touch of war and an¬ 
swer the challenge from oversea. 

With this realization Todd broke the silence in 
a firm voice, pointing to the yellow envelope in the 
old man’s hand. 

“Seth, that telegram holds bad news for you 
folks.” 

Seth’s attitude of defiance relaxed. Taut cords 
stood out beneath the dry skin of his throat as the 
inner man gripped himself. 

“Is Jim hurt?” There was a tremor of pater¬ 
nalism in the question. The yellow envelope flut¬ 
tered to the ground near the mare’s feet. 

Todd looked Seth steadily in the eyes. “Worse 
than hurt, old friend, yet better than hurt,” he 
replied. “Jim is dead.” 

Not a cry, not a tear, not a groan, not even a 
quiver of the world-worn mouth and brow. Only 
an expression of incredulity that hardened into 
sternness. 

“Dead?—dead! My Jim dead.” Then, after 
a while, “Hit’ll go plumb hard with his ma, her 


WHEN BREATHITT WENT TO BATTLE 79 


Jimmy dead.” The keen eyes widened and the 
wrinkled face was lifted to the hills. 

Directly, in a calm, low voice: “Tell me, law¬ 
yer, who kilt him? How was he kilt, my Jim?” 

“He was killed in action, Seth, killed by ‘Kee- 
ser and his Germins’ while bombing an enemy’s 
trench.” 

“Bombing a trench! Whar in hell was his 
rifle-gun?” 

“He wasn’t using it then.” Todd drew on his 
imagination. “But he sold out at a high figger, 
Seth, that boy of yours. A dozen Germans went 
down before they got him.” 

The old man’s eyes flashed. “Ye say they did? 
Jim he kilt a dozen of ’em?” His friend nodded. 
“Lord!—now don’t that beat all!” Seth chuckled 
an unhealthy chuckle. “Kilt a dozen of ’em!” 

When he next spoke, however, it was briefly 
and through lips parched and drawn. 

“Wal, I reckon that settles hit. Yas, lawyer, I 
reckon that mighty nigh settles hit.” And with 
shoulders bent forward, his chin in his hand, the 
old man lapsed into lonely meditation. 

Todd left him there, seated on the stile, and 
with a sigh of relief that his mission had been thus 
far accomplished, rode his mare around to the barn. 

The Breathitt country that day vibrated with a 
silent but compelling call. Bare-footed couriers, 
wizards of short cut and bypath, slipped through 
valley and over ridge, up rocky creek bed and down 
steep decline, bearing a message from their chief. 
The lesser clan heads received the message; and 
from beneath their clapboard roofs, they in turn 
sent forth couriers to their followers. Along the 
waters of Troublesome, Middle Fork, Quicksand 



80 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 

and Kentucky River, the word flashed. A hushed 
suspense closed over the hills. Men greeted one 
another in undertones, sensing rather than speak¬ 
ing what each had in mind. Action was the neces¬ 
sity of the hour; swift, tense action that tarried 
neither to question nor to reason, but obeyed. 

But little time elapsed after Lawyer Todd left 
old Seth at the stile, before the Brannons and their 
kinsmen began to gather at the cabin of their chief. 
They straggled in by ones and twos and threes, 
some mounted and some on foot. Among them 
were grandfathers, with stooped shoulders and 
snowy beards; others were mere boys. 

Most of the men bore modern rifles and re¬ 
volvers ; a few had shotguns. One, on whom the 
hookworm had set its blight, had been able to mus¬ 
ter only a pitchfork. Another was armed with a 
kitchen knife and a hickory club. Besides their 
weapons all the equipment the men carried was a 
bundle of food, done up in a greasy paper, con¬ 
sisting of chunks of corn bread, a bit of salt and 
several strips of bacon. 

Some of the “neighbor wimmen” had come to 
Seth’s cabin to tender their services and sympathies 
to the bereaved mother. Old Seth himself sat alone 
on the edge of the weather-warped porch, brooding. 
His rifle lay across his knees, and while one hairy 
hand stroked the polished stock, his eyes were 
fastened on the horizon above the eastern hills. 
The only hint of emotion in his face was the dumb¬ 
ness of an emotion too deep for expression. 

The men stood about the yard in little groups. 
Out in the barn lot several of the younger men 
pitched horseshoes. Others played mumble-peg 
near the stile block, or lounged against the rail 


WHEN BREATHITT WENT TO BATTLE 81 


fence, whittling. The patriarchs of the clan squat¬ 
ted at a respectful distance from their chief, wait¬ 
ing to be called to council. 

And upon them all poured the warming rays of 
the afternoon sun. The pine-fringed mountains, 
green with the fresh, soft green of spring, closed 
in grim but kindly embrace about the little army in 
the valley below. A dove cooed plaintively from 
a near-by hollow; beneath the cabin porch the cur 
whined and howled with a sense of approaching 
crisis. 

After a while old Seth arose, steadying himself 
against the corner of the porch. And silently his 
followers gathered about him. 

“Boys,” he said, “I reckon ye all know why I 
sent fer ye. Jim’s been kilt. Him that was o’ 
my flesh and blood, and o’ yer flesh and blood, is 
dead. Keeser and his Germins kilt him, boys. 
Nothin’ on this airth that me or ye can do will 
bring him back to life. 

“When Jim went to war, he went withouten my 
lief. I’d fought a lot in my time and I wanted 
him to keep outen sech trouble. But he went; he 
got the notion he ought to go, and all I could say 
wouldn’t stop him. Jim says that Keeser and his 
Germins ’as killin’ wimmen and chil’ren over van. 
He says this country’d soon be at war and that we 
folks o’ Breathitt ought to git ready and fight same 
as the rest o’ the people. I studied on hit a heap 
then—and today I’ve studied on hit some more. 

“As Jim ’lowed hit’d be, boys, this here coun¬ 
try’s at war. I don’t understand all about hit 
myself, about this de-mocracy we’re a-fightin’ fer 
or what we’re goin’ to do with the thing after we 
gits hit. Lawyer Todd says hit’s jest another name 


82 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


fer freedom and liberty. Maybe hit is. Anyway, 
boys, since I’ve thought hit over, thar ain’t been a 
war yet when us fellers o’ the hills ain’t took a 
hand. Some fought fer the Union, some fer the 
South. Some fought in Cuby, and some o’ our kin 
helped whop them sassy niggers in the Fillerpines. 

“Whenever we’ve fought, boys, we’ve had a 
reason fer hit, a mighty good reason. Do ye re¬ 
member back thar, several year ago, when Bulger 
Allen plugged Hal Brannon in the heart as Hal 
’as cornin’ home from meetin’ with his gal? Do 
ye recollect how hit riled us and how we got our 
rifle-guns and went after them Allens ? They’d 
kilt one o’ our folks, they’d broke the peace. But 
afore we got through with ’em, they seen hit ’as 
healthiest to leave our folks alone and keep their 
lead to themselves!’’ 

Seth paused, swallowed, then went on: 

“Boys, Jim’s been kilt. Yesterd’y we weren’t 
boldin’ nothin’ agin’ Keeser and his Germins. They 
hadn’t hurt none o’ we’uns. What devilment they’d 
done, they’d done outsiden these hills whar we 
ain’t got no concarn. But now hit’s different. 
Hit’s jest another case o’ them Allens, boys. Hit 
means we got to draw blood fer blood. Had Jim 
been one o’ ye or yer sons, I’d say the same thing. 
A Brannon’s life has been took: ye and me and all 
our folks has got to take lives to pay fer hissen. 
That’s the way we do hit up here in these moun¬ 
tings. That’s the way we got to do hit with Keeser 
and his Germins.” 

Lawyer Todd, standing on the edge of the com¬ 
pany, frowned and bit his lip. He had been listen¬ 
ing to the speech. Inwardly he had rejoiced. But 
now he felt a pang of disappointment. Seth, he 


WHEN BREATHITT WENT TO BATTLE 83 


feared, was about to overshoot the mark in his 
newly aroused enthusiasm. He was reckoning on 
personal vengeance against “Keeser and his Ger- 
mins,” something that could not be but which would 
be hard for him to realize. 

Todd, trying to attract as little notice as pos¬ 
sible, edged through the crowd until he stood at the 
old chief’s elbow. As he paused in his delivery, the 
lawyer caught his attention. 

“Seth,” he began in an undertone, “Seth, it 
doesn’t pay to be too hasty about this thing you’re 
doing. You know, those people at Washington 
don’t believe in fighting exactly the wav we do 
down here. They go about it different. It’s the 
young men who are sent to war. The government 
takes only those who are in their prime, and it’s the 
government that picks out the guns they’ll shoot 
and the clothes they’ll wear and tells ’em how to 
act and what to do. Don’t misunderstand me, 
Seth. It’s all right for you to want to go to Europe 
and whip ‘Keeser and his Germins,’ but, Seth, you 
just naturally can’t go.” 

The old man looked at the lawyer in surprise. 

“Can’t go?” he repeated aloud. “Ye mean to 
say I’m too old to go?” There was wrath in the 
tone. Those near by moved closer, listening. 
“Why, lawyer, I’m as young in feelin’s as any boy 
here. I can tromp as fer, shoot as straight and 
stand as much as any sodjer the gover’ment’s got.” 

“Perhaps so,” replied Todd; “that all may be 
very true. But it’s only the young fellows they 
want. Lead your men down to Jackson, let the re¬ 
cruiting officers there pick those who are fit; then 
you and the rest come back here to your farms, 
raise more crops, pray for them that’s gone, and be 


84 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


good citizens. That’s your part in the war, old 
friend.” 

“I’ll be damned if hit is!” Seth threw up his 
grizzled head in anger. “I can fight as well as the 
best of ’em. I reckon I’m an Amerikin too. Hit’s 
my country and my war and my Jim what’s been 
kilt. Won’t they let a pa fight them as murdered 
his son? Won’t they let him shoot them as shot 
him ? By Gawd! o’ course they will, lawyer, and 
nothin’ in all creation can make me stay home!” 

Todd stepped back. He saw the futility of 
further argument. He even doubted the wisdom of 
his speaking as much as he had. 

Seth wrestled with his emotions for some mo¬ 
ments in silence. Then the passion left his wrin¬ 
kled features. He was thoughtful, debating with 
himself. Finally, his self control regained, he 
turned to the waiting multitude before him. 

“Maybe Lawyer Todd’s right, boys,” he said 
with sudden frankness. “Maybe hit’s so that we 
can’t all go to war agin’ them as kilt our Jim.” 
He flashed a friendly glance of reassurance over 
the heads of his followers to where the lawyer 
stood. “Hit’s different outsiden these hills ’an hit 
is here. We ain’t the only ones a-fightin’ Keeser 
and his Germins. The whole nation’s a-got hits 
dander up. Lawyer Todd says that afore the 
break o’ another spring thar’ll be more’n a million 
sodjers Tong side o’ us, ready to whop them Ger¬ 
mins. I reckon I spoke kinda hasty jest now. 
We can’t have hit all our way. We’ll jest have to 
fit in with the rest wharever we can. Hit may be 
a close fit and hit may pinch at times, boys, but 
hit’s best. Lawyer Todd and them army men 
knows. We’ll try and make up our minds to do 
what they Tows is fer the good o’ all o’ us. 


WHEN BREATHITT WENT TO BATTLE 85 


“So we’ll go down to Jackson town, to that 
re-cruitin’ office, and axe them sodjer fellers thar 
to git us to Eurip. They’re showin’ others the way 
and I reckon they’ll show us. Some o’ us won’t 
come back, boys, like Jim won’t come back. Some 
o’ us is liable to lose a arm or a leg. But remember 
this, boys, wharever ye go or whoever ye’re fightin’, 
that ye’re men o’ Breathitt. Remember ye’re not 
only goin’ to kill Germins but to kill the bad name 
that the world ’as give us. Me and Lawyer Todd 
stands together on that. We’re goin’ to stop 
wastin’ powder on our own folks. We’re goin’ to 
show them people in the Blue Grass and all over 
the country, that the men o’ these mountings is men 
no different from them when hit comes to shoul¬ 
derin’ a rifle-gun and pertectin’ their homes and 
wimmen and chil’ren. We’re goin’ to make 
Breathitt stand fer somethin’ else besides Breathitt 
blood.” 

Old Seth picked up his rifle from where he had 
leaned it against the porch wall. His hand was 
steady; he pressed the gun over his heart as if to 
breathe into its lifeless mechanism a part of his 
own warrior spirit. 

“Boys, time’s up,” he said. “War’s on. Jim’s 
body over yan is callin’ us to come. Hit’s a-callin’ 
us men o’ the hills, us men o’ Breathitt. We’re 
a-goin’ ”—he raised his voice. “Wars on, I say, 
boys, war’s on; and Keeser and his Germins is 
goin’ to catch hell—Breathitt hell—and hell 
a-plenty!” 

As their chief concluded a wild yell burst from 
ten score mountain throats, a weird and ringing 
yell that surged through the neighboring valleys, 
beat against the stolid walls of rock and pine, and 


86 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


bounded upward and beyond, the answer of the 
Breathitt folk to humanity's call to arms. 

Lawyer Todd, a smile lifting the weariness 
from his face, sat his mare and watched the de¬ 
parture of the little army. There was no saying 
of farewells to the women and children; there were 
no handclasps or tears. Old Seth, astride a long¬ 
eared mule, led the way. The others straggled 
after him in irregular order. Those who had 
mounts rode them; the rest followed on foot. With 
their packs of food slung over their shoulders, their 
guns in the crook of their arms, the men filed out 
of the cabin yard and through the valley toward a 
distant gap in the hills. 

“My people, my people!” softly exclaimed 
Todd, as he moved after them. “Kentuckians all, 
Americans all, this day you give the lie to the 
slander put upon your mountain race. My people, 
my noble people!” 

Dry-eyed women, shading their brows with toil- 
scarred hands, lingered at their cabin doors, their 
children clustered about them, and watched their 
men go by. Occasionally one of them waved, and 
an answering salute came from among the irregu¬ 
lar ranks. 

Beyond the western ridges the sun dropped into 
a saffron sky, crowning with a halo of gold the 
reborn feudland, touching with mellow light the 
crags and peaks that stood out proudly in the dusk. 
High above the misty valleys a bald eagle circled, 
forward, backward, forward, backward, over the 
country of warrior clans; while through the distant 
gap marched mountain men, men of soul and heart 
and brawn. 

Breathitt was at war ! 

Lewis H. Kilpatrick. 


THE FORGIVER 

Religion;, said the mining man, sometimes puts 
me in mind of one of those new blasting powders; 
there’s no just telling when it’ll go off or whom 
it’ll blow up. 

I was thinking then of Radway and Billsky: 
“Bad” Radway, him that beat up Ellis at Borro- 
meo and shot Fargue O’Leary. You will have 
heard of him. Every one was hearing of him at 
one time, and then all the talk kind of faded out. 
By and by Radway himself faded out. It was 
Billsky that faded him. 

Billsky was a little, serious, hairy fellow, not 
much higher than Radway’s elbow; a good little 
fellow, that never gave any trouble to any one. He 
always seemed, in a meek sort of way, puzzled over 
existence in general and his own share in it in par¬ 
ticular. Men liked him. He was awful kind- 
hearted, but he’d the same sense of humor as an 
Apache. Primitive, that’s what he was. He was 
part Russian, and he’d a primitive sort of name 
that no one ever tried to pronounce. Billsky came 
near enough. 

He scarcely ever came in Rad’s way, though he 
moved with the same crowd. Rad was in the cen¬ 
ter, you see, Billsky just wanderin’ on the out¬ 
skirts. They got mixed up pretty close, though, 
later. 

It began with a girl, of course, a girl at Bor- 


88 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


romeo. No need for names. She was a nice girl, 
and a nice-lookin’ girl, just one of many, thank 
God. No one so much as guessed Billsky was 
sweet on her till she went away suddenly and was 
seen no more, and her folks moved away. It was 
put down to Rad, and he didn’t deny it; sort o’ 
smiled and looked knowin’. You know the kind. 
Then Billsky heard of it. He was working up at 
the Joyeux then, for that was before the irrigation 
was put through, and it was all cattle. He sent 
a message through to Radway. “I’m coming down 
to kill you,” said the message, “soon as I can get 
my time. Don’t go away.” 

Well, that was Billsky all over, and most men 
thought it was a great joke. Radway did. “What 
does the little rat take me for ?” he said. “I guess 
he’s in no hurry. I’ll have some time to wait.” 
Most men thought so, too, but not all. 

Meanwhile, Billsky stuck to his job till he could 
quit without giving inconvenience. Then he got his 
time. He sunk every dollar of his pay in a fine 
pony, a quick goer. And down he came the eighty 
miles to Borromeo, like a fire in grass. 

The betting was all on Rad, of course. It was 
said he thought Billsky too good a joke to shoot; 
he’d just beat him up a bit if he was troublesome, 
and let him go. 

Twenty miles out of Borromeo, Billsky had to 
stop at a preacher’s. And there he got religion. 

Yes, it’s a fact; he got it overnight. What he 
told the preacher, or the preacher said to him, I 
don’t know. I don’t begin to know. But Billsky 
went off afoot into the desert, five miles maybe; 
and it is pretty much of a desert round there. He 
had nothing with him but the gun he was going to 


THE FORGIVER 


89 


shoot Radway with, and a Bible. He laid them 
both under a sagebush, and all night he knelt in 
front of them, and waited for the Lord to begin 
on him. There isn’t much in the desert at night, 
you know, but stars; and a sky back of ’em that 
makes even the planets look cheap. The Lord 
must have had His way with Billsky, without fear 
or favor, for at dawn he came staggering back to 
the preacher, drenched with sweat and dew. He 
had only the Bible with him. 

“I believe,” he said to the preacher, “and as I 
hope for forgiveness, so I forgive the man it was in 
my heart to kill. Tell him so from me,” he said; 
“but it’s laid on me,” said Billsky, “that I’ll never 
save my soul till I tell him so myself. So tell him, 
too, to wait for me, for I’m a-coming to forgive 
him.” Then he went down in a heap at the preach¬ 
er’s feet. 

That old man was a real Christian, and he put 
Billsky to bed and looked after him like a father. 
He’d never had an out-and-out hot-on-the-spot 
convert like that before, and he was so worked up 
and excited over it that he saddled his old horse 
and rode into Borromeo himself to give Radway the 
message of forgiveness. 

I was in Duluth’s, with some of the other fel¬ 
lows, looking at some new saddles he had in; and 
Rad was there, too, and there was a good deal of 
talk going on of one kind and another. Some one 
must have told the old preacher where Rad was, for 
he pulled up his old white nag outside Duluth’s, 
and “Mr. Radway!” he called, in a high voice, “Mr. 
Radway! I have a message for you.” 

“Hello!” said Rad, winking at his cronies,—I 
wasn’t one,—“Is Billsky coming with his gun? I 
must get ready to hide.” And there was laughing. 


90 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


Sitting his old horse straight as an Indian, the 
old preacher raised his head and took his hat off. 
His white hair shone in the sun. There seemed to 
be more than sun shining on his face. “Mr. Rad- 
way/’ says he, “the message I bring is one of for¬ 
giveness. You have nothing to fear from Billsky. 
He forgives you. And I was to tell you that he 
will never rest until he himself can assure you of 
that forgiveness. And may the Lord have mercy 
on you,” said the old man, and put on his hat and 
rode away. I give you my word, I never heard 
Duluth’s so quiet! There wasn’t a sound till Rad¬ 
way caught his breath and began to curse. 

Funny what’ll get a man’s nerve, eh? It sent 
Rad quite wild to think Billsky wanted to forgive 
him! 

Billsky was sick at the preacher’s some time. 
He came into Borromeo looking queerer and hairier 
than ever, and simply eaten alive with the longin’ 
to forgive Rad. “ ’Tisn’t him I’m thinking of,” 
he explained in his careful way, “he’ll get what’s 
coming to him, anyway; it’s me,” he said. “How’m 
I to save my soul if I don’t forgive him?” 

“Well, you can’t forgive him just yet,” said the 
man he was talking to, sort of soothing. “He ain’t 
here. He’s on a new job: foreman at the Llindura, 
and went out last week.” 

“Oh!” said Billsky. He looked all around him, 
kind of taken aback and hurt. “Oh! Why’d he 
do that?” 

“He didn’t do it because he was afraid of you, 
old sport,” said the other man, laughing fit to hurt 
himself, “if that’s what you’re thinking.” 

Billsky looked more hurt than ever. He’d big 
collie-dog eyes in his furry face, and now they fair- 


THE FORGIVER 


91 


ly filled with tears. “Why should I think that?” 
he said earnestly. “I only want to forgive him. 
I only want to tell him I forgive him.” And he 
went away, all puzzled at the contrariety of things 
in general. 

He kept pretty small and quiet about Borromeo 
for a few days; and then I saw him looking awful 
pleased with himself. “Gray Thomas,” he told 
me, “he’s going out to the Llindura with some 
mules, and he’ll take me along. So now I’ll be able 
to forgive Radway,” he said, “and get it off my 
mind.” 

He went out to the Llindura with the mules. 
When he got there, he found Rad had been sent to 
Sageville with a bunch of calves the day before. 

He stayed a week at the Llindura, almost too 
worried to earn his keep, waiting for Radway - 
Radway didn’t come. At the end of the week, he 
lit out for Sageville. Halfway there, he met the 
rest of Rad’s outfit, coming back. “Rad’s been bit 
with the mining fever,” they told Billsky, “and he’s 
off into the Altanero country with a man he met in 
Sageville. The boss’ll be mad with him.” Billsky 
looked more grieved than ever. 

“Did he know I was waiting for him?” said he. 

“No,” said they, “how should he?” 

Well, how should he? But I believe he did. 
You see, Billsky’s forgiveness had got on his nerves. 

It was a close call in Sageville that Radway’d 
get forgiven in spite of himself. He actually rode 
out one end of the town with his new partner as 
Billsky came in at the other. 

The fellows laughed at Billsky; but they liked 
him; and maybe they began to wonder. Anyway, 
Billsky stayed in Sageville a week, selling his pony 


92 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


and getting an outfit together. When they asked 
him what he wanted a prospectin’ outfit for, he just 
looked at them in a surprised, hurt sort of way, 
and said, “Why, to go after Rad and forgive him, 
of course. What’d you think?” Pretty soon, they 
stopped laughing. It was the look on Billsky’s 
face stopped them. You know how queer brown 
and yellow faces look to us? That’s because the 
expression never changes. Billsky began to look 
queer, like a Chink or an Indian; he’d just one 
expression in those days, stamped on his hairy face 
as if he’d been branded with it. 

He got two burros and an outfit of sorts, and 
off he went at the end of the week, trailing Radway 
into the Altanero. Three days before he went, a 
mule wagon pulled out for Secar; it overtook Rad¬ 
way and his partner, and the driver told him his 
forgiver was following on. So, you see, Rad knew. 

Have you ever seen the opening of the Alta¬ 
nero: the Gates of the Altanero? There’s desert, 
and there’s hills, and there’s canons; and there’s 
the Altanero. This side the Gates, you’re still 
somebody, with work to do, and money to get, and 
girls to kiss: anything, if you go find it. Other 
side the Gates, you’re nobody, nothing. You just 
go out. Yes, you just go out. It’s like dying while 
you’re alive. You don’t count at all; and quite 
often you die dead. 

H ave you ever seen the Gates? You go on and 
on in the heat, away from Sageville, and Secar, and 
everything you know. They lie flat behind you, 
lost in the heat. You don’t see ’em if you turn and 
look. You don’t see anything. Even the sage thins 
out and goes. It’s all dust. Then ahead, ever so 
far, you see something gold. It rises higher, little 


THE FORGIVER 


93 


by little,—oh so slow!—and you see it’s rocks, 
great golden rocks. They lift, and lift, and lift. 
One day you find they’re behind you as well as in 
front: nothing but golden rocks; unless it’s red 
rocks or green rocks or rocks like clear black glass. 
I’ve known some queer moments, but there’s noth¬ 
ing so queer as when it first comes home to you 
that, for miles and miles in every direction, there’s 
just nothing but the rocks—like a world rough-cut 
from precious stones and left to die. 

There’s few wells in the Altanero: few that are 
known. You travel by, and accordin’ to, the wells. 
Radway struck off into the hills from the Secar 
trail, making for the first well. A week later, there 
was Billsky following over the same ground. Each 
night he’d camp by one of Radway’s cold fires; 
and, each night, he’d kneel in the ashes and pray. 
Sometimes he’d pray an hour, or two hours, or 
three, under the tremendous stars; but it was 
always that he might catch up with Rad quick, and 
forgive him, and get it off his mind. He wasn’t 
worrying. He was just eager. He knew he was 
bound to come across Rad sooner or later in the 
Altanero. Then he’d sleep, and eat, and off he’d 
go, singing hymns to the burros: “Greenland’s Icy 
Mountains,” most likely. 

Once, in the dead ashes, he found a broke-off 
saucepan handle. He was so pleased he carted it 
along with him, like a mascot. It seemed to put 
him in touch with Radway: to bring the happy 
moment o’ forgiveness nearer. 

And Radway? Well, there you have me. 

The Altanero’s a bad country to travel in if 
you’ve anything on your nerves. I passed through 
a few miles of it once when I had something on 


94 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


mine: a sick child two hundred miles away; and I 
tell you, by the third day I was seein’ the kid every¬ 
where. But Radway—I can’t just explain Rad¬ 
way. I wonder if he was seein’ the girl that 
started it. 

Billsky made the first water-hole six days be¬ 
hind Rad; he’d gained a day. 

Rad and company had used considerable of the 
water in that hole. It had shrunk, and there in the 
margin, baked hard and white like clay, were foot¬ 
prints of men and burros. Billsky picked out Rad’s 
footprints and patted ’em, he was so pleased. He 
rested by the water a few hours, and freshened up 
his burros. Then he went on. 

Between the first water-hole and the second the 
country opens up. It isn’t just a huddle of rocks. 
It’s mesas rising from a dead level of dust like the 
worn foundations of towers and cathedrals and 
cities, banded in rose and violet and gold. You 
could no more climb most of ’em than you could 
climb the outside of a skyscraper. But Billsky 
found one he could climb, and up he went. He’d 
seen some sort of dry, grassy stuff at the top, and 
he wanted it for Sarah, one of the burros that was 
ailing. He found more than the grass on top. He 
found a grave. Didn’t know whose, of course; 
nobody knows, nor ever will. He gave the grass to 
Sarah; but next day she died. Billsky was terrible 
hurt and grieved, he was always so careful of 
beasts. He never realized that Sarah was just 
beat out: couldn’t stand the pace. 

At the second water-hole he was only four days 
behind Rad. 

He rested up a bit, being worried over his 
burro; and took out the lost time in prayer. Then 


THE FORGIVER 


95 


on he went, at that terrible pace, overhauling Rad 
by the mile, achin’ to forgive him. It’s a long 
stretch to the third hole. Billsky gained two days 
on it. I can’t guess how. He told me he took short 
cuts through the canons, and that they always 
turned out all right; and that he sang “Hold the 
Fort, for I Am Coming,’’ right along. 

He found the third hole fouled and shrunk. In 
a stretch of mud, Rad had written with a stick, 
“If you follow me any further, I will shoot you on 
sight.” How did he know Billsky was so near? 
Maybe he’d seen his fire the night before. Billsky 
read the writing, and was dreadful hurt and 
grieved. “He doesn’t understand,” he said, “that 
I’m going to forgive him. It’s what I’m follerin’ 
him for.” He prayed half the night, and went on 
quicker than ever next day. 

Few have ever been so far into the Altanero as 
the fourth hole. It’s hard to find. Long before 
Billsky made it, he saw a speck in the sky; it was 
a great bird, sailing round in little, slow circles. 
Under it was the fourth water-hole. 

It was quite a pool when Billsky came to it. 
There were bushes round it, and fibrous grass. 
There were three burros feeding on the bushes, 
and a small tent pitched. A man came out of the 
tent, and when he saw Billsky he held up his hands. 

“Don’t shoot,” he said, “I’m not Radway. 
You’ve no quarrel with me.” 

“Nor with him,” said Billsky. “I’ve come to 
forgive him. Where is he?” 

“Gone,” said the man, “gone mad, I guess. 
He’s pushed on alone. Day before yesterday I 
took sick. We was to rest up here, and then cast 
round careful, always within reach o’ this water. 


96 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


This morning he went out and climbed them rocks 
there. Then he came back, and said he must go 
on, he couldn’t wait. I went to stop him, and he 
laid me out. See here.” The man was most cryin’; 
he turned his face, and Billsky saw a great black 
swelling on his jaw. “He went on,” he said, “as if 
the devil was after him. And the devil’s you!” 

Billsky was the meekest little hairy man; and 
now he too was fit to cry. “He don’t know me,” 
he said, very sad, “but it’ll be all right. . . . 

What’s on there?” he said, pointing beyond. 

“God knows, who made it,” said the man, “out 
of hell’s leftovers. But no one else does, for no 
one’s ever been there.” 

“It’ll be all right,” said Billsky again. “I’ll 
go on after him, and forgive him, and bring him 
back.” 

He started out to do it, taking one of Rad’s 
burros, which were fresher than his; and bound 
he’d come up with Rad this time. 

I don’t rightly know what happened there, be¬ 
yond the last water. One thing, I never been there. 
I gather Billsky just pushed on as usual, following 
Rad’s tracks. He followed ’em easy: the only foot¬ 
steps within a hundred miles or so! As he went he 
sang “Glory for Me,” because he was going to be 
able to forgive Rad at last. 

The big bird in the sky, lie swung off from the 
water-hole and followed Billsky. There was just 
them two moving things for him to see: Radway 
on ahead, mad to get away from Billsky, and old 
Billsky, mad to forgive him, and singing the glory 
song. 

Billsky couldn’t tell me much about this part 
of it. He just went on, and on, and on. Some- 


THE FORGIVER 


97 


times, he said, there were stars. The place was so 
still he began to think he could hear ’em shine: 
a sort of fizzing, like an arc-light, which, of course, 
he knew to be foolishness. Sometimes there was 
just the sun, a great fire, like as if it were fastened 
to the earth and burning all the life out of it. 
There were the rocks, of course, but he didn’t 
remember them much: only one great black cleft, 
and a glimmer in the walls of it. The glimmer was 
gold-veined turquoise, just sticking out o’ that cliff 
so you could have pried it loose with a toothpick. 
Billsky couldn’t tell you where it was if you paid 
him. He wasn’t thinking of anything but forgiving 
Rad. 

Then, with a noise, he says, like a roll of rifle- 
fire, that big bird dropped out of heaven like a 
stone, and shot past him, and settled just ahead. 
There was a dead burro there, and an empty water 
can. But Radway, he’d gone on. Billsky went 
after him, singing powerful; but his voice didn’t 
make much noise. 

Then there was a little crack ahead. Some¬ 
thing sang past Billsky, and flipped a tiny flake 
off of the side of the canon. Billsky stopped and 
looked at the flake lying at his feet, just as pretty 
as a pink rose-leaf. He knew a bullet had chipped 
it off, and that he’d come within shooting length of 
Radway. He let out a yell of joy. “It’s me, 
Rad!’’ he yelled. “I’m cornin’ to forgive you!” 
But Radway didn’t stop. He went on, as if he was 
mad; and behind him came the man that was killin’ 
him: the man that only wanted to forgive him. 

There were more shots. Billsky said Rad fired 
at him all that afternoon, but owing to the refrac¬ 
tion, he wasn’t hit once. Besides, Rad was break- 


98 


THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


ing up. Once your nerve goes, you break up quick 
in the Altanero. 

It was evening when Billsky came up with him. 

You know evening on the Altanero? The sun’s 
down on the edge of things, as big as a burning 
house. All the rocks turn clear as glass for a 
minute. It’s as if the light went clean through 
them, and came out colored with their colors: rose, 
violet, gold. The air you breathe glows. The 
rosy-red canon Billsky was in ended sudden in a 
wall that hit the sky. The sunset touched it, and 
it became like a veil, says Billsky, a blood-red cur¬ 
tain hung from earth to heaven. At the foot of it 
lay Bad Radway. 

Billsky ran at him, trying to yell. He had his 
water flask ready. All day he’d been saving water 
to give to Radway, but he was too late. Rad just 
looked at him; and all that had been inside him: 
all the remorse, the guilt, the black fear, the un¬ 
known damage of the soul that first drove him to be 
scared of Billsky, came out in that look. 

It struck Billsky to the heart. “Rad, Rad,” 
he said, “don’t you be scared o’ me! I forgive you. 
Rad!” he said. 

But Bad Radway didn’t hear. He was dead. 

Billsky had done his part, but he was all broke 
up. He got back to the water-hole somehow, after 
burying Rad at the foot of the cliff. He and the 
other man that had been Rad’s partner lit out for 
home right away. They’d had enough of the Alta¬ 
nero. 

When I last saw Billsky, he was terrible hurt 
and grieved because the other man held him to 
blame for what had happened to Radway. “He 
seems to think,” said Billsky to me, “that I done 


THE FORGIVER 


99 


something to him! Me that follered him all that 
way just to forgive him! He seems to think, that 
guy does, that I done something!” 

Then, in a puzzled, exasperated kind of way, 
he laughed. “But come to think of it,” said Bill- 
sky, “it was funny.” 

Well, as I said before, religion’s a queer thing 
to handle; but I don’t see anything funny in it. 

Marjorie L. C. Pickthall. 



TOLD TO PARSON 

A little girl came rushing into the gate of the 
vicarage at Postbridge, Dartmoor, and it chanced 
that she met the minister himself as he bent in his 
garden and scattered lime around upspringing 
seeds. 

“These slugs would try the patience of a saint/’ 
he said, hearing footsteps, and not looking up. 
“They have eaten off nearly all my young lark¬ 
spurs. How can one fight them?” 

Then a small, breathless voice broke in upon 
him. 

“Please, sir, mother sent me, an’ I’ve runned 
a’most all the way from our cottage wi’out stopping 
once. ’Tis old Mr. Mundy, please. He’m dying 
—so he told mother when her fetched him his milk 
this morning—an’ he says he’ve got something very 
special to tell anybody as’ll care to come an’ listen 
to it. But nobody don’t want to hear his secrets 
in the village; so mother said ’twas your job, 
please, an’ sent me for your honor.” 

“My job—yes, so it is, little maid. I’ll come 
at once. An’ they’d better send for the doctor. 
It isn’t his regular visiting day until Thursday, 
but probably it’s his job, too.” 

“Mother axed the old man that; an’ he said 
as he didn’t want no doctor, nor his traade [medi¬ 
cine] neither. He says h’m nearly a hundred years 
old, an’ he won’t be messed about with at his time 
of life, but just die easy an’ comfortable.” 


TOLD TO PARSON 


101 


In twenty minutes the clergyman had walked 
a mile and crossed a strip of the wilderness that 
stretched round about the little hamlet on Dartmoor 
where he labored. A single cottage separated from 
the rest by wide tracts of furze and heather stood 
here, and near it lay a neglected garden. But 
“Gaffer” Mundy had long ceased to fight the moor 
or care for his plot of land. His patch of the 
reclaimed earth returned fast to primitive savagery. 
Brake fern sprouted in the potato bed; rush, heath¬ 
er and briar choked the currant bushes; fearless 
rabbits nibbled every green thing. 

“Come in, whoever you may be,” said an ancient 
voice. So the visitor obeyed and entered, to find 
the sufferer, fully dressed, sitting by a fire of peat. 
Noah Mundy was once very tall, but now his height 
had vanished and he had been long bent under his 
burden of years. A bald, yellow skull rose above 
his countenance, and infinite age marked his face. 
As the earth through centuries of cooling has wrin¬ 
kled into mountains and flattened into ocean beds 
between them, so these aged features, stamped and 
torn with the fret and fever of long life, had be¬ 
come as a book whereon time had written many 
things for those who could read them. Very weak 
was the man, and very thin. He was toothless and 
almost hairless; the scanty beard that fell from 
his chin was white, while his mustache had long 
been dyed with snuff to a lively yellow. His eyes 
remained alive, though one was filmed over with 
an opaline haze. But from the other he saw clearly 
enough for all his needs. He made it a boast that 
he could not write, and he could not read. There 
was no book in his house. 

“ ’Tis you, eh? I could have wished for a man 


102 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


out of your trade, but it won’t matter. I’ve got a 
thing worth telling; but mark this, I don’t care a 
button what you think of it, an’ I don’t want none 
of your bunkum an’ lies after I have told it. Sit 
down in that thicky chair an’ smoke your pipe an’ 
keep cool. Ban’t no use getting excited now, for 
what I be going to tell ’e happened more’n sixty 
years ago—afore you was born or thought about.” 

“My smoke won’t trouble you?” 

“Bah! I’ve smoked and chewed an’ snuffed for 
more’n half a century. I’m baccy through and 
through—soaked in it,'as you might say. An’ as 
for smoke, if what you tell to church be true, I 
shall have smoke, an’ fire too, afore long. But 
hell’s only a joke to frighten females. I don’t set 
no store by it.” 

“Better leave that, Mr. Mundy. If you really 
believe your end is near, let us be serious. Yes, 
I’ll smoke my pipe. And you must feel very, very 
sure, that what you tell me is absolutely sacred, 
unless you wish it otherwise.” 

“Nought sacred about it, I reckon—all t’other 
way. An’ as for telling, you can go an’ shout it 
from top of Believer Tor you’m minded to. I don’t 
care a farden curse who knows it now. Wait till 
I’m out of it; then do as you please.” 

He drank a little milk, remained silent a mo¬ 
ment with his eyes upon the fire, and presently 
began to tell his life’s strange tale. 

“Me an’ my brother was the only children our 
parents ever had; an’ my brother was five years 
older’n me. My father, Jonas Mundy, got money 
through a will, an’ he brought it to Dartymoor, 
like a fool, an’ rented a bit of moor from the 
Duchy of Cornwall, an’ built a farm upon it, an’ 


TOLD TO PARSON 


103 


set to work to reclaim the land. At first he pros¬ 
pered, an’ Aller Bottom Farm, as my father called 
it, was a promising place, so long as sweat of man 
poured out there without ceasing. You can see the 
ruins of it yet, for when Jonas Mundy died an’ 
it failed to me, I left it an’ corned up here; an’ the 
chap as took it off my hands—he went bankrupt 
inside three year. ’Tis all failed to pieces now, 
for none tried again. 

“But that’s to overrun the matter. When I was 
fifteen an’ my brother, John James, was twenty, 
us both failed in love with the same maid. You 
stare; but though fifteen in years, I was twenty-five 
in understanding, an’ a very oncoming youth where 
women were concerned. Nelly Baker had turned 
seventeen, an’ more than once I told her that though 
a boy of fifteen couldn’t wed a maid of her age 
without making folks laugh, even if he could get a 
parson to hitch them, yet a chap of three-an’- 
twenty might very properly take a girl of five-an’- 
twenty without the deed calling for any question. 
An’ her loved me truly enough; for though you 
only see a worn-out scarecrow afore you now, yet 
seventy year agone I filled the eye of more maidens 
than one, and was a bowerly youth to look upon— 
tall, straight, tough, wi’ hair so black as a crow. 

“John James he never knowed that I cared a 
button for Nelly. I never showed it to a living 
soul but her by word or look; an’ she kept quiet— 
for fear of being laughed at, no doubt. Her folks 
were dead on the match with John James, an’ he 
pressed her so hard that she’d have took him but 
for me. He was a pretty fellow too—the Mundys 
were very personable as a family. Quite different, 
though, from me. Fair polled, wi’ flaxen hair, an’ 


104 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


terrible strong was John James, an’ the best 
wrastler on Dartymoor in them days. 

“Me an’ her met by appointment a week afore 
she’d got to give him a final ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ I mind 
it very well to this hour; an’ yet ’tis seventy-odd 
years agone. On Hartland Tor us sat in the 
heather unseen, an’ I put my arms around her an’ 
loved her, an’ promised to make her a happy 
woman. Then I told her what she’d got to do. 
First I made her prick her finger wi’ a thorn of 
the furze, an’ draw blood, an’ swear afore the Liv¬ 
ing God she’d marry me as soon as I could make 
her mistress of a farm. 

“She was for joking about the matter at first, 
but I soon forced her to grow serious. She done 
what I told her, an’ since she believed in the Living 
God, I reckoned her oath would bind her fast 
enough. As for me, I laughed out of sight, for I 
never believed in nothing but myself—not even 
when I was a boy under twenty years old. Next I 
bade her fall out with John James. I put words 
in her mouth to say to him. ‘I know the fashion of 
man he be—short an’ fiery in his temper,’ I told 
her. ‘Be hot an’ quick with him. Tell him he’s 
not your sort, an’ never will be—quarrel with his 
color, if you like. Tell him he’m too pink an’ white 
for ’e. Say ’tis enough that your own eyes be blue, 
an’ that you’d never wed a blue-eyed man. Make 
him angry—you han’t a woman if you don’t know 
how to do that. Then the rest be easy enough. 
He’ll flare an’ flae like a tar barrel on Guy Fawkes 
Night. But he’ll trouble you no more, for he’m so 
proud as Satan.’ 

“Nelly Baker took in all I said; an’ inside a 
week she’d dropped my brother. But ’twas what 


TOLD TO PARSON 


105 


he done after that startled folks, for without a 
word to any living soul, he vanished, like the dew 
of the morning, four-an’-twenty hours after she’d 
flinged him over. I was the last that seed him. 
We were working together out ’pon the land; an’ 
he was sour an’ crusty wi’ his trouble, an’ hadn’t 
a word to fling at me. Dimpsy light fell, an’ I 
went in a tool shed to don my jacket an’ go home. 
’Twas autumn, an’ us had been spreading manure 
upon the meadow. 

“ ‘Be you coming, John James?’ I said. 

“ ‘You go to hell,’ he answered. ‘I’ll come 
when I’ve a mind to, an’ maybe I won’t come at 
all!’ 

“So home I walked wi’out another word; an’ he 
never corned; an’ nobody ever heard a whisper 
about him again from that day to this. For a sol¬ 
dier he went, ’twas thought; but the after history 
of un never reached nobody at Postbridge; an’ 
whether he was shot or whether he gathered glory 
in foreign parts none ’pon Dartymoor can tell you. 

“A nine days’ wonder it was, an’ it killed my 
mother; for' John James was the apple of her eye. 
Her never cared a button for me, ’cause I was the 
living likeness of her brother—my uncle, Silas 
Bond. They sent him to Botany Bay for burning 
down wheat stacks. A bad lot he was, no doubt; 
an’ a fool to boot, which is worse. For he got 
catched an’ punished. An’ he deserved all he got— 
for letting ’em catch him. 

“With John James out of the way, I corned to 
be a bit more important in the house, an’ when my 
mother died, father got to trust me with his money. 
I was old for my years, you see. As for Nelly, 
she kept so true to me as the bird to her nest—for 


106 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


five years; an’ then I’d got to be twenty, an’ had 
saved over three hundred pound for her; an’ she 
was twenty-two. A good many chaps wanted to 
marry her; but she kept our secret close, an’ said 
‘nay’ to some very snug men, an’ just waited for 
me an’ Alter Bottom Farm. 

“Then, when I’d reckoned to name the day an’ 
take her so soon as I corned of age, Oliver Honey¬ 
well turned up from down country an’ rented that 
old tenement farm what be called Merripit. So 
good land as any ’pon all Dartymoor goes with it. 
An’ he corned wi’ a flourish of trumpets an’ plenty 
of money. He was going to larn us all how to 
farm, an’ how to make money ’pon weekdays, an’ 
how to get to heaven Sundays. 

“Rot the devil! I see him now—a smug, sleek, 
fat, handsome, prosperous man, with the insolence 
of a spoilt cat! He’d preach in the open air of a 
Sunday, for there was no parson nor church here 
in them days. Strong as a horse,—a very prac¬ 
tical man,—always right. Did plenty of good, as 
the saying goes, an’ went about like a procession, 
as if he expected angels from heaven to be waiting 
for him at every street corner with a golden crown. 
His right hand was generous, but he took very good 
care his left hand knowed it. He didn’t do his 
good in secret, nor yet hide his light under a bushel. 

“He was a black-haired man ; wi’ scholarship 
an’ money behind him. He knew the better-most 
folk. They called upon him, I believe, an’ axed 
him to their houses, it was said. He hunted, and 
paid money to help three different packs o’ hounds. 
An old mother kept house for him. He tried to 
patronize the whole of Postbridge an’ play the 
squire an’ vicar rolled into one. Men as owed him 


TOLD TO PARSON 


107 


nought an’ thanked him for nought pulled their hair 
to him. But there be some fools who will always 
touch their hats to a pair o’ horses. There corned 
to be an idea in people’s minds that Honeywell 
was a Godsend, though if you axed them why, they 
generally couldn’t tell you. 

“An’ my Nelly failed in love with him. 

“At least she said so; though Heaven knows 
that the pompous fool, for all his fine linen, weren’t 
a patch on what I was at twenty-one. Anyway, he 
corned courting her, for ’twas not known yet that 
me an’ Nelly was more’n friends; an’ then when 
he heard how we had been secretly tokened for no 
less than six years, he corned to see me with a long- 
winded lie in his mouth. An’ the lie was larded wi’ 
texts from scripture. Nelly Baker had misunder¬ 
stood her feelings about me, he said; her had never 
knowed what true love was till she met him; an’ 
he hoped I’d behave as honestly as he had—an’ all 
the rest of it. In fact, she’d throwed me over for 
him an’ his money an’ his high position; an’ he 
corned to let me down gently with bits from the 
Bible. As for her, she always lusted after money 
and property. 

“Us fought hand to hand, for I flew at him, 
man, like a dog, an’ I’d have strangled him an’ 
tored the liver out of him, but some chaps heard him 
howling an’ runned along, an’ pulled me off his 
throat in time. 

“He didn’t have the law of me; but Nelly Baker 
kept out of my way afterwards, like as if I was 
the plague; an’ then six months passed an’ they 
was axed out in marriage so grand as you please 
at Widecombe Church. 

“I only seed her once more; but after lying in 


108 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


wait for her, weeks an’ weeks, like a fox for a 
rabbit, it chanced at last that I met her one evening 
going home across the moor above Aller Bottom 
Farm ’pon the edge of the last of our fields. Then 
us had a bit of a tell. ’Twas only a fortnight afore 
she was going to marry Mr. Oliver Honeywell. 

“I axed her to change her mind; I spoke to her 
so gentle as a dove croons; but she was ice all 
through—cold an’ hard an’ wicked to me. Then 
I growed savage. I noticed how mincing her’d 
growed in her speech since Honeywell had took her 
up. She was changed from a good Devon maid 
into a town miss, full o’ airs an’ graces that made 
me sick to see. He’d poisoned her. 

“ ‘Do try an’ be sensible,’ she said. ‘We were 
silly children all them years, you know, Mr. Mun- 
dy. You’ll find somebody much better suited to 
you than I am—really you will. Have you ever 
thought of Mary Reep, now? She’s prettier than 
I am—I am sure she is.’ 

“Her named the darter of William Reep, a com¬ 
mon laborer as worked on Honeywell’s farm at 
ten shilling a week. The devil in me broke loose, 
an’ quite right too. 

“‘We’ve gone up in the world of late then? 
’Twas always your hope and prayer to come by a 
bit of property. But ’tis a coorious thing,’ I said. 
‘Do you know that you’m standing just where my 
brother, John James, stood last time ever he was 
seed by mortal eyes ?’ 

“ ‘What’s that to me?’ she said. ‘Let me go 
by, please, Mr. Mundy. I’m late, as it is.’ 

“ ‘He was never seed again,’ I told her. ‘ ’Tis 
a coorious thing to me, as you be stand’—on the 
same spot at the same time—just as he did, in the 


TOLD TO PARSON 


109 


first shadow of night. His going, you see, made 
me my father’s heir, an’ rich enough to give you a 
good home some day.’ 

“Then her growed a thought pale an’ tried to 
pass me. 

“I went home presently; but from that hour 
Nelly Baker was seen no more. None ever knowed 
I’d been the last to speak with her; an’ none ever 
pitied me. But there was a rare fuss made over 
Oliver Honeywell. He wore black for her; an’ 
lived a bachelor for five year. Then he married a 
widow; but not till his mother died. 

“An’ that’s the story I thought would interest 
some folks.’’ 

The minister tapped his pipe on the hob, and 
knocked the ashes out. He cleared his throat and 
spoke. He had learned nothing that was new to 
him. 

“It is a strange story, indeed, Mr. Mundy, and 
I am interested to have heard it from your own 
lips. Rumor has not lied, for once. The tale, as 
you tell it, is substantially the same that has been 
handed down in this village for two generations. 
But no one knows that you were the last to see 
Nelly Baker. Did you ever guess what happened?’’ 

The old man smiled, and showed his empty 
gums. 

“No—I didn’t guess, because I knowed very 
well without guessing,’’ he said. “All the same I 
should have thought that you, with your mighty 
fine knowledge of human nature, would have 
guessed very quick. ’Twas I killed my brother— 
broke in the back of his head wi’ a pickax when 
he was down on one knee tying his bootlace. An’ 
me only fifteen year old! An’ I killed Nelly Baker 


110 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


—how, it don’t matter. You’ll find the dust of ’em 
side by side in one of them old ‘money pits’ ’pon 
Believer Tor. ’Tis a place that looks due east, 
an’ there’s a ring of stones a hundred yards away 
from it. The ‘old men’ buried their dead there 
once, I’ve heard tell. Break down a gert flat slab 
o’ granite alongside a white thorn tree, an’ you’ll 
find what’s left of ’em in a deep hole behind. So 
she never corned by any property after all.” 

The ancient sinner’s head fell forward, but his 
eyes were still open. 

“Good God ! After all these years ! Man, man, 
make your peace! Confess your awful crime!” 
cried the clergyman. 

The other answered: 

“None of that—none of that rot! I’d do the 
same this minute; an’ if there was anything that 
corned after—if I meet that damned witch in hell 
tomorrow I’d kill her over again, if her still had a 
body I could shake the life out of. Now get you 
gone, an’ let me pass in peace.” 

The reverend gentleman departed at his best 
speed, but presently returned, bringing soups and 
cordials. With him there came a cottage woman 
who performed services for the sick. But when 
Mrs. Badger saw Noah Mundy, she knew that little 
remained to do. 

“He’s gone,” she said, “soft an’ sweet as a baby 
falls to sleep. Some soap an’ water an’ a coffin be 
all he wants now, your honor; not this here beau¬ 
tiful broth, nor brandy neither. So you had best go 
back along, Sir, an’ send Old Mother Dawe up to 
help me, if you please.” 

Eden Phillpotts. 


IRON 


The child Cecily waited until her brother had 
made a bridge from a fallen bough, and then clasp¬ 
ing her adorably grubby hands about his neck 
allowed him to carry her across the stream. 

“Which way, little sister?” he asked. 

A dragon-fly hovered above the water and then 
darted away, and Cecily with a vague idea of fol¬ 
lowing it chose a sunken path that almost traced 
the brook in its course. It was a silent little stream 
running through the sleepy meadows, and where it 
widened among the pond lilies it almost stopped. 
Here and there it eddied self-consciously about the 
yellow flowers and further on it almost rippled in 
shy haste. And in the golden afternoon Cecily 
knew that the boy, so clever at building bridges, 
so capable in the midst of barbed wire, and above 
all, so kind to her, was wonderful beyond all tell¬ 
ing. 

*■ * 

When three tiny aeroplanes flew above the 
trenches, it reminded the boy of the dragon-flies 
over the brook at home, and once when he crawled 
through the mud and helped cut away some barbed 
wire, the barbed wire made him think of a bit of 
the brook which ran through the pasture. He re¬ 
membered the wire had made a breakwater of drift¬ 
ing leaves and that Cecily had thrown stones at 
the leaves until they had slowly floated away in a 


112 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


great clump. And because he imagined himself a 
victim of unmanly sentiment, he detested these 
memories; so that after a while they returned no 
more. 

At the training camp he had learned, or thought 
he had learned, the trick of withdrawing a bayonet 
after a supposedly unparried lunge. But here as 
he slipped in the wet snow trying to release the 
driven bayonet, the thing caught and tore and 
ripped the flesh. And to keep from falling he 
crushed and mangled the face beneath him with 
his heel. . . . 

* * 

Cecily in the twilight pressed her face against 
the window pane. The gaunt branch of a tree 
waved and pointed across the snow, but the little 
frozen stream was hidden away. 

The child thought that when the boy returned 
he would still be wonderful. 

Randolph Edgar. 


THE PERFECT INTERVAL 

The sound of the telephone bell brought the 
tuner’s mild blue eyes from his plate. 

“F sharp/’ he remarked. “Same pitch as the 
bell in my shop.” 

“How extraordinary that you can name the 
pitch of a sound offhand!” exclaimed the professor, 
eyeing him with interest. 

“All in the way of business,” replied the tuner 
placidly. “No, thank you, ma’arm, no cream on 
the pudding. I never paint the lily, as father used 
to say. . . . I’d not have been tuning pianos all 
over the world with a ‘come again’ always behind 
me if I hadn’t had something of an ear, would I, 
now?” 

“But accurate to such a degree! I thought one 
tuned by chords and melodies and—and that sort 
of thing.” 

“Chords! Melodies!” repeated the tuner with 
professional scorn. “Of course some do muddle 
along that way, but there’s nothing in it. The 
octave, there’s the interval to give the test to a 
man’s ear.” 

“You’re Greek in your preferences,” comment¬ 
ed the professor with a smile. “The Greeks, you 
know, knew nothing of harmony as we understand 
it. Their only interval was the octave—they called 
it magadizing.” 

“Well now, to think of it!” said the tuner. “I 


114 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


wish I’d known. There was a Greek sailor on the 
Silvershell, and I might have had a chat with him 
about his music.” 

“I was referring to the ancient Greeks/’ the 
professor explained. “I am not familiar with mod¬ 
ern Greek music, but I imagine it is very much like 
modern music everywhere.” 

“Of course/’ agreed the tuner cynically. “Comic 
operas, chords that give all ten fingers something 
to do—that’s music as they write it now. And I’m 
not saying that it hasn’t its place/’ he went on. 
“It’s human, at least. Professionally, I admire the 
octave, but when I sit down in the evening for a 
bit of a rest and me daughter Nora plays ‘Vesper 
Chimes/ the way those chords pile up on each other 
don’t hurt me the way it would some. After all, 
perfection’s apt to be a bit bleak, isn’t it? There 
was Cartwright, for instance. The octave came to 
be the only perfect interval for him—poor Cart¬ 
wright !” 

“Cartwright?” repeated the professor curi¬ 
ously. 

“Haven’t I ever told you about Cartwright? 
Hm! Well!” He pushed his chair back a little 
from the table, fixed his eyes thoughtfully on the 
antics of a pair of orioles building a nest outside 
the window, and meditated for a moment. We were 
too wise to break the silence, for we knew that the 
tuner was digging up from the storehouse of a rich 
memory some fresh chapter in the Odyssey of his 
wanderings. After a little he began his tale. 

* * 

What the professor.here said about the Greeks 
and their octaves set me thinking about Cartwright. 


THE PERFECT INTERVAL 


115 


I haven’t often spoken of him, for there’s not much 
to tell that most people would understand. Molly, 
now, she always speaks of him as that poor crazy 
Mr. Cartwright. The perfect interval is nonsense, 
Molly says. Red Wing’s good enough for her 
. . . but I’d better begin at the beginning. 

It was the time Molly and I were taking our 
wedding trip on the tramp schooner Silvershell, 
and we were cruising about the Pacific after copra 
and vanilla and all those cargoes that sound so 
romantic when one’s young. One of the ports we 
were bound for was a place called Taku, down in 
the Dangerous Archipelago. The captain warned 
us that it would be a bad trip. 

“But you ought to make your fortune there,” 
he says, “for I’ll lay a wager you’re the first tuner 
that’s ever visited the place. Whether you get 
home to spend your money or not, that’s another 
matter. That’s on the knees of the gods,” says the 
captain, who was an Oxford man and had picked 
up some of his expressions there. 

When we got in among the islands I saw what 
he meant. Coral they were, and reefs above water 
and below. Molly and I slept in our life preservers 
night after night, and daytime we could scarcely 
go down to meals for wondering how we’d get 
through that boiling sea of breakers and hidden 
peaks of coral. We’d some narrow shaves, too, 
but we made Taku, and anchored one evening in 
a lagoon that looked as if it might have been paint¬ 
ed on a colored calendar, palms and parrots and 
native huts and all. 

The Silvershell was to be in port some time, and 
the captain told us to look about as much as we 
liked. 


116 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“There’s an organ up at the mission/’ he says. 
“It’s got asthma or something. If you can cure it, 
I’ll gladly foot the bill. I’m a church-going man 
when I’m ashore,” says the captain, who liked his 
joke, “but that organ puts me clean off religion.” 

. Well, I made a good job of the organ, and 
very grateful the ladies were for it, too. Then I 
went up to the British commissioner’s, where I was 
told there was a piano needing attention. David¬ 
son, the comrpissioner, was an uncommonly decent 
chap, and he put me in the way of two or three 
more odd bits of tuning and repairing, besides 
having his own instrument put into shape. The 
missionary ladies had suggested that Molly and I 
stay with them while the Silvershell was in port, 
so I could put in a tidy bit of work in a day. But 
there were only twenty white families in the place, 
and I’d about gone through the work when one 
afternoon Davidson stopped me as I was going 
back to the mission, and asked me to step up to 
the house with him, as a friend of his wanted to 
talk with me about rather a large job of repairing 
he wished done. 

The friend was Cartwright. I shall never for¬ 
get that first sight of him, not to my dying day. 
He was standing in the big music room where I’d 
been working for Davidson two or three days be¬ 
fore, and as we came in he turned and gave us 
such a look! 

“Oh, it’s you!” he said, as if he’d expected 
something terrible to come in the door. And then, 
as Davidson introduced us, he nodded in an off¬ 
hand sort of way. He was the only'man I’ve ever 
called beautiful. Beautiful was the only word to 
describe him. “Golden lads,”—1 once heard an 


THE PERFECT INTERVAL 


117 


actor spout about them at a play, and now, when 
I remember that expression, 1 think of Cartwright. 
He was a golden lad, for all his haunted, unhappy 
face. 

“I’ve a piano at home that wants looking after,” 
he says to me after a moment. “Rather a large 
job, but if you are willing to go back with me in 
the morning I’ll make it worth your while.” 

“If it isn’t too far away,” I said. “I’m only 
stopping here while the Silvershell is in port.” 

“Not so far,” says Cartwright. “I could have 
you back here in three or four days. And I’ll make 
it worth your while.” In spite of his off-handed¬ 
ness, it was plain he was keen on having me come. 

Of course I said I’d go, and then Cartwright 
nodded and said something about my being at the 
wharf about five, and left us, just like that. 

“But he never told me what was needed for the 
piano,” I said to Davidson. 

“About everything, I fancy,” Davidson answers 
gruffly. “It hasn’t been touched in ten years.” 

“Ten years!” I said. “He’s no business having 
a piano if he cares no more for it than that.” 

“He cared too much for it, perhaps,” Davidson 
said in a peculiar tone. He took out his pipe and 
fussed with it, then he went on. “Perhaps I ought 
to tell you. He hasn’t touched the piano since the 
night his wife drowned herself. ... I was there 
at the time. Cartwright and Charlotte had been 
singing together.” 

“W as Charlotte his wife?” 

“His cousin, Sir John Brooke’s daughter. Sir 
John is my chief, you know. They are expected 
back from England almost any day now.” 

Davidson’s face had gone quite red at the men- 


118 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


tion of the girl’s name, and all at once I guessed 
why he had been so keen about having his piano 
in shape. I wondered if it was for this Char¬ 
lotte’s sake that Cartwright, too, was preparing. 

“Cartwright’s wife was the daughter of old 
Miakela, the native chief,” was the surprising in¬ 
formation Davidson offered me next. “She had 
been educated at a convent in Manila, and she was 
very beautiful in a cold, foreign way. I think, 
though, it was her voice that first attracted Cart¬ 
wright. It was perfect; it made other quite nice 
voices sound coarse and shrill. Cartwright had 
come out to Taku to visit his uncle, and he met the 
girl here the evening she came back from Manila. 
The next day he married her—rode over the moun¬ 
tains to ask her father’s permission. That old 
savage—fancy! There was a huge row with Sir 
John, and Cartwright took the girl and went to 
live on a little atoll about forty miles from here. 

. . . Miss Charlotte hadn’t come out from school 
in England then. She came back the next year. 
. . . That’s how it happened.” 

As a matter of fact he really hadn’t told me 
how it happened at all, but he began to talk of 
other things, and after a bit I said good-night, and 
went back to tell Molly about my new job. 

I wish you could have seen the lagoon the next 
morning when I went down to meet Cartwright. 
The old coral wharf was flushed with pink that 
shaded into mauve below the water, and the mauve 
went amethyst, and then violet blue out where the 
Silvershell slept at her anchor in the middle of 
the lagoon. And still! Not a ripple anywhere 
until a high-prowed native canoe slipped out from 
a pool of shadow under the palms along the shore, 


THE PERFECT INTERVAL 


119 


cutting through the glassy water like a boat in a 
dream. As she neared the wharf the sun jumped 
up from the sea, and Cartwright, all in white, stood 
up in the stern and shaded his eyes with his hand. 
He was a picture, his haunted beauty above the 
bronzed backs of the rowers. 

He apologized for bringing me out so early, 
then seemed to forget all about me and sat silent, 
his eyes on the horizon line. Not that I minded. 
I wanted to be let alone, so I could look about me 
as we slipped along over a sea that seemed to have 
no end. 

Once outside the lagoon, the men bent to their 
paddles with a will, breaking into a melody that 
reminded me of some hymn tune. They gave it a 
foreign twist by ending each line on the octave. 

“Wonderful pitch!” I said. 

“What’s that?” asked Cartwright, jerking his 
head round. I repeated what I’d said. He glared 
at me wildly, then seemed to pull himself together, 
and muttered some sort of reply. 

“Well, if a simple speech has that effect on 
you, my lad, I’ll sit silent,” I said to myself, and 
silent I did sit the rest of the trip. 

About the middle of the morning a bunch of 
what looked like feather dusters rose out of the 
sea in front of us. Pretty soon I could see a pinky 
ridge below, then a line of white. The men put up 
a brown sail, and in another hour we slid between 
two lines of breakers into the tiniest lagoon I ever 
saw, lying in the arms of a crescent-shaped atoll. 
The whole thing could not have been more than 
four or five miles long and fifty feet high at the 
ridge. There was a group of native huts on the 
beach and a rambling house above, set in a grove 


120 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


of breadfruit and citron and scarlet flame trees. 
The rest of the island was bare except for a brush 
of pandanus along the crest and a group of coconut 
palms on the point, their trunks leaning seaward, 
as if they were looking for something on the hori¬ 
zon. A lonely spot, yet with a sharp, gemlike 
beauty of its own. 

“Won’t you come up and rest a bit?” Cart¬ 
wright asked. “You had an early start this morn¬ 
ing.” 

I said I’d-rather go right to work. I hadn’t 
forgotten the way he glared at me in the boat, and 
I wasn’t going to put myself in the way of another 
look like that. 

“Right, then; I’ll show you the piano,” he says. 
But he didn’t move, only stood staring at me with 
the look of a small boy that had got himself into 
some trouble, and was wondering if I could help 
him out. 

Suddenly he started off almost on a run, and 
led. me around the shore to the point below the 
coconut palms, where a pavilion stood in a thick 
clump of trees. The place looked as if it hadn’t 
been visited for years. The path was choked with 
undergrowth, and the doorway was almost hidden 
by twisted ropes of lianas, growing down serpent 
fashion from the branches overhead. 

“A sweet place to keep a piano,” I thought to 
myself. I could hardly believe it was the piano 
he was bringing me to. But as we reached the 
door I saw it in its wrapping of tarpaulin, half 
hid under forest rubbish that had filtered through 
the broken thatch of the roof. As I lifted one 
corner of the cover, something jumped up with a 
rush of wings and went screaming past my head. 
It gave me a proper fright. 


THE PERFECT INTERVAL 


“Just a parrot/’ Cartwright said. “You’ve 
upset her nest, you see. Be careful when you lift 
the lid. There may be centipedes inside.” 

“If you’ll clear the live stock off the outside, 
I’ll see to the inside,” I said. “I should think a 
cheaper piano would have done the parrots to nest 
in, sir.” 

“It seems odd to you,” he said meekly, wrin¬ 
kling his forehead a little. “I wish I could ex¬ 
plain—•” 

He caught himself up, and I answered never a 
word, but began examining the piano. It was a 
Broadwood grand, but the state it was in! I’d 
hard work not to give him a further piece of my 
mind. 

For three days 1 worked at the poor thing. 
Hammers eaten off by the white ants, wires that 
the sea rust had done for, cracked keys, nothing 
really in shape but the sounding board. And all 
the time I was working the parrots kept screaming 
over my head, the trades blew through the torn 
thatch of palms, the surf beat on the pink and 
purple reefs beyond the point, and I kept thinking 
what a queer start it all was and how much I’d 
have to tell Molly when I got back. 

Now and again Cartwright would stop a few 
minutes in the doorway and make jerky conver¬ 
sation, eyeing the piano like a starving man the 
while. He stopped quite a time the third morning. 
I was busy tuning and hadn’t much to say, but 
gradually he came nearer. 

“How’s it coming on?” he asked. 

“All in shape but one string,” I said. “Try 
the tone of it, sir.” 

“I mustn’t touch it, I mustn’t touch it,” he says 


122 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


to himself, but all the time he was coming closer, 
as if something was pulling him on. He put out 
his hand and struck B flat octave. 

“The upper B is mute!” he cries. 

I explained that the string had broken twice, 
and I hadn’t got around to putting another in. 

“Broken!” he says wildly. “She’s not going to 
have it there. And now I’ll not get the sound out 
of my head again!” 

I suppose he saw something in my face that 
made him recollect himself. It was pitiful to see 
him pull himself together. 

“Do your best with it, old chap,” he says hur¬ 
riedly. “I’m depending on you. My uncle and 
cousin are to be back from England soon. I—I 
want everything right when my cousin Charlotte 
comes.” 

He spoke the girl’s name as if it were a charm. 

That evening, as we were smoking, he began to 
talk of his cousin again. She’d stayed with his 
people while she was going to school, he told me, 
and she and Cartwright had been great friends. 

“She was comforting,” he said. “She made one 
feel happy and—and normal.” Then he said, in a 
tone that sounded as if he expected me to contra¬ 
dict him: “She had a good ear for music, too. Not 
perfect, of course. . . . Did you ever know any one 
with an ear so perfect that only the eighth interval 
satisfied them?” 

“One or two,” I said, wondering what he was 
driving at now. “They were cranks, though. One 
should love music in reason, in my opinion.” 

“In reason, that’s it,” Cartwright repeated in 
a low tone. “My cousin loved it in reason. I 
couldn’t. Perfection—I was tortured with the 
idea.” 


THE PERFECT INTERVAL 


123 


I waited, and after a little he went on. 

“I’ve never been able to care for things in 
reason. I wanted perfection. Music, love, I 
longed to lose myself in them, but couldn’t, because 
always something jarred, and then I grew cold. 
My cousin Charlotte used to laugh at me. She had 
a sweet voice. Not perfect, though, and sometimes 
it would irritate me to madness to hear the flaws 
that most people didn’t even notice. And yet even 
at sixteen Charlotte was dearer to me than any 
other creature on earth. 

“Then I came out to Taku, and I met Lulu- 
kuila. She was beautiful beyond anything I had 
ever dreamed. She made other women look clumsy 
beside her. She stayed overnight at my uncle’s, 
and next day an escort came from the old chief, her 
father—six savages in pandanus kilts and neck¬ 
laces. Those creatures came to take the very flower 
of womanhood back to uncivilized surroundings. 
I can’t tell you how horrible it seemed to me. And 
so I married her.” 

Cartwright jumped up, and began walking up 
and down. After a while he switched off on an¬ 
other tack. 

“Her voice was as perfect as her face,” he said, 
“and her sense of pitch was absolute. Those first 
days we used to go out to the point where the 
pavilion stands, and sit looking out over the reefs, 
and I thought I’d found happiness at last. I liked 
to hear her answer a certain note that the sea 
sounds in the reefs yonder when the tide is right. 
She would take up the note an octave higher, and 
it was thrilling, the perfection of her pitch. I 
sent home for the piano, imagining that it would 
be a bond between us. I thought I’d teach her the 
songs Charlotte and I used to sing together. 


m THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“But she hated the piano/’ Cartwright brought 
out in a muffled voice. “I suppose I was rather a 
fool over it at first. I was so hungry for familiar 
music. Lulukuila couldn’t bear the music I’d grown 
up with. It brought out alien traits in her, gusts of 
passion, fits of moodiness. Octaves, those she’d 
listen to. Once when I filled in an octave she 
jumped up and caught my hands. I remember 
yet how she looked. 

“ ‘You are drawn by the many voices/ she said. 
‘There should be only one for you.’ 

“She went off to the pavilion then, and when I 
went to find her she was singing, following that 
sound the surf made on the reefs. The perfection 
of her pitch made me shiver. I began to hate it 
then. I saw that Lulukuila was going to destroy 
my pleasure in the music I had loved. She was 
robbing me—■” 

I don’t believe Cartwright was talking to any 
one in particular by this time. His voice dropped, 
and I missed a lot till I heard him mention his 
cousin. He stopped then, and looked at me for 
the first time. 

“My uncle threw me over when I married 
Lulukuila,” he said, “but when my cousin Charlotte 
came out from England she made her father come 
over with her. She brought Davidson too—good 
sort, Davidson. 

“I must have been homesick, for the sight of 
them seemed to wake me from a nightmare. I 
remember we were very jolly at dinner. After¬ 
ward Charlotte and I sang. I was thinking how 
good it was to hear the music of home again, when 
I caught sight of Lulukuila’s face in a shaft of 
light that reached out to where the rest were sit- 


THE PERFECT INTERVAL 


125 


ting. Her face was white, and her teeth were 
biting her lip. 

“Charlotte stopped playing just then, and 
asked me why I had broken into the octave. The 
chord, she said, was so much prettier. I couldn’t 
tell her that it was Lulukuila’s interval haunting 
me. I hadn’t even known I was singing an octave,” 
Cartwright added with a sudden laugh. Then he 
went on. 

“We didn’t sing any more, but went out to 
join the others. Lulukuila wasn’t there. I was 
just asking Davidson where she had gone, when I 
heard a splash down by the lagoon. All in a flash 
I remembered how her face had looked in the 
lamplight, and I started off down the path. ... I 
got there too late.” 

After a while he began muttering in a discon¬ 
nected sort of way. “She had her way. I’ve never 
touched the piano since. Surely I have the right 
now, though, now Charlotte’s coming back—a little 
happiness.” 

“That’s the thing to think of now, sir,” I says, 
wondering if I should call his man or leave him to 
talk himself out. “You weren’t to blame for what 
happened. Think of your cousin now.” 

“My cousin, yes,” Cartwright murmured. He 
pulled himself up with a sharp breath. 

“I’m afraid I’ve been talking an uncommon 
lot,” he said in his ordinary tone. “It’s late. You 
must be wanting to turn in.” 

We commented on the sultriness of the night as 
we parted. The stars were hidden in a sort of 
murk, and the air had grown so still that the beetles 
bumping against the banana leaves overhead star¬ 
tled one like the crack of artillery. 


126 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


Inside I found Simmons, Cartwright’s servant, 
tapping the barometer. 

“It’s fallen uncommonly fast,” Simmons said 
to me. “Just as it did before the hurricane five 
years ago.” 

“The hurricane!” I said. “Did it do much 
damage?” 

“Not to speak of,” Simmons said. “Some of 
the native huts were swept away when the water 
backed up into the lagoon, but the people had time 
to get up here. There’s no saying what might have 
happened if the water had come up two feet 
higher.” 

“I hope there isn’t going to be a hurricane this 
time,” I said, thinking of Molly. 

“I hope so, I’m sure,” says Simmons, in an 
undertaker’s voice. 

It took more than a falling barometer to put 
me off sleep those days, and I was off sounder than 
usual that night. I waked at last in a bedlam of 
sound, wailing of wind, cracking of branches, and 
the thunder of surf from the barrier reef. 

“It’s the hurricane that owl Simmons was wish¬ 
ing -on us,” I thought. I struck a match to find 
my clothes, but a gust of wind puffed it out. I was 
just trying for the third time, when Simmons came 
in, carrying one of the two ship’s lanterns Cart¬ 
wright kept by the outer door. 

“Do you know where Mr. Cartwright is?” Sim¬ 
mons says. 

“I? No. Isn’t he in bed?” 

Simmons shook his head. “I’m afraid he’s 
gone down to the pavilion. He began to worry 
about the piano. I see the other lantern’s gone. 
I must go after him.” 


THE PERFECT INTERVAL 


127 


“I’ll come with you, then,” I said. “Just hold 
the light while I find my clothes.” 

Ordinarily that Yorkshire face of Simmons had 
no more expression than a granite slab, but he 
looked human enough now. If he cared for any 
earthly creature it was Cartwright. I’d not been 
in the house three days without finding that out. 

I had a start as we passed through the big 
room, for the floor was covered with figures 
stretched out like corpses on the mats. “From the 
huts on the beach,” Simmons explained. “That’s 
what makes me think it’s going to be a bad storm.” 

He braced himself to hold the door open for me, 
and added in a sudden shout as the roar of the 
storm came about us: “A little harder than last 
time, and the pavilion would go.” 

The path to the pavilion ran just above the 
coral shingle along the foot of the ridge. Ordi¬ 
narily it was ten feet above high tide, but as we 
struggled on, hugging the bank to keep from being 
blown flat by the wind, I could catch a glimpse of 
creaming, sullen-looking water not two yards away. 
Slipping up quietly it was, and the soundlessness 
of its rising was more uncanny than all the bustle 
and roar on the reefs outside. 

We had a struggle to get on, and Simmons 
hung on to me to keep me from being blown into 
the lagoon. I began to wish I hadn’t come, and I 
thought of the peaceful mission house in Taku and 
of Molly. 

“Mr. Cartwright’s there,” Simmons says sud¬ 
denly in my ear. “I see his light. Hang tight. 
The wind’s worse out here.” 

And it was. An awful clap came, driving us to 
our knees. I saw a huge bulk crash down between 
us and the pavilion. The light disappeared. 


128 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“The breadfruit tree/’ said Simmons, in a 
hoarse voice. He clawed his way over the fallen 
branches and I managed to follow, shivering to 
think of what a misstep would do for me. At last 
we made out Cartwright struggling in the wreck¬ 
age brought down by the fallen tree. 

“You, Simmons?” he cried. “Quick! Give a 
hand with this piano. We must get it to higher 
ground.” 

His voice sounded sane enough, but it was the 
speech of a crazy man. The only path up the 
ridge was a mere goat trail, fully exposed to the 
wind. And Cartwright was suggesting our car¬ 
rying the piano up that! Simmons jerked his lan¬ 
tern up to Cartwright’s face. There was wildness 
with a vengeance. But my word! How beautiful 
he looked with his fair, tossed hair, and his eyes 
purple black with excitement. 

“It’s you we’ve come for, sir,” Simmons says 
to him. “The water’s backing up fast. There’s 
no time to lose.” 

“We must save the piano first,” Cartwright says 
insistently. A lull had fallen, and his voice sound¬ 
ed very clear. Simmons made a desperate gesture. 

“It’s gathering for worse,” he muttered. I 
took a hand. 

“If that wind comes up again we’ll have to 
scramble to save our skins,” I shouted. “It isn’t 
humanly possible for us to move the piano. Come, 
sir, while there’s time!” 

“And desert it again?” he asks with a strange 
little smile. “You’re asking too much of me, old 
chap. What about Charlotte?” 

“She won’t care a hang about the piano!” I 
could have stamped my foot at him. “It’s you 


THE PERFECT INTERVAL 


129 


she’ll be worrying about. Don’t be an ass.” That 
shows how beyond myself I was, that I could speak 
to him that way. A long, ominous roll shook the 
silence. 

“It’s the surf coming over the reefs,” Simmons 
says in a hushed voice. 

“By Jove, you’re right!” Cartwright exclaims, 
throwing back his head. His voice was boyish 
and energetic. “Come on, we must make a dash 
for it.” And jerking up the lantern he fairly 
herded us through the tangle to the cliff. 

There the gale broke loose on us again. We 
lay flat on our faces, clinging for dear life to the 
stems of the stout little pandanus palms. It was 
like a beast, that wind. It sucked the breath from 
our mouths, it pounded us and shrieked at us and 
mocked us till we were half dead from the sheer, 
cruel force of it. We could scarcely think. Once 
I had a vision of those huddled figures on the mats, 
and wondered if the house was still standing, and 
once I thought of Molly, and hoped she was saying 
a prayer for me. Then all thought was wiped 
out as, with a shaking of the very cliff, the surf 
came racing into the lagoon, sending the spray up 
fifty feet, and drenching us where we lay. 

“The piano!” Cartwright shouted, struggling 
to get up. Simmons hauled him down, crying to 
him that it was no use to think of the piano. Cart¬ 
wright stayed quiet a moment till another of those 
uncanny silences fell. 

“Now we can go down,” Cartwright said plead¬ 
ingly. “I can’t lose my chance of happiness again. 
The piano—•” 

The words died on his lips. Through the thun¬ 
der of the surf came a single long-drawn note, 
clear and unearthly sweet. 


130 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“B flat,” I said, scarcely knowing that I spoke. 
Cartwright gave a wild laugh. 

“You hear it? The voice from the reefs. Why 
doesn’t Lulukuila answer?” 

Well, I can only tell you what happened next, 
and you may believe it or not. From below us 
there came another note, making a perfect octave. 
Never before or since have I heard anything so 
exquisite or so horrible. Then there was a hideous 
discord—and silence. 

“Lulukuila!” Cartwright cried. “She is taking 
it from me—my only chance of happiness—” 

And before we could stop him he was gone. 

We tried to follow him, but the wind caught 
us again at the edge of the ridge. I’d have been 
over and lost if it hadn’t been for Simmons. I 
think I must have fainted from the shock of it. 
There’s a blank about there, though the rest of the 
night seemed centuries long. 

The wind stopped at sunrise, and we made our 
way home along the ridge, looking down on a beach 
swept clean of every human mark, pavilion, grove, 
native huts and all. The house was still standing, 
but in a wreck of fallen branches and torn lianas. 
Scared servants and ashen-faced women and chil¬ 
dren came out to meet us, and began asking for 
their master. Simmons, granite faced as ever, did 
not answer them, but pushed on down to the beach. 

Cartwright had come home ahead of us. He 
was lying on the shore, unscarred except for a 
faint streak of blue across one temple. He looked 
beautiful as some sleeping creature of the sea. 
The wreck of the piano was just above him. Sim¬ 
mons’ composure gave way when he saw that. 

“You’ve broken the thing he loved, and you’ve 


THE PERFECT INTERVAL 


131 


killed him, too. I hope you’re satisfied at last!” 
he snarled, shaking his fist at the lagoon. I won¬ 
dered if he was talking to Lulukuila. It was a 
terrifying outburst—from a man like Simmons. 

Next morning they came over from Taku to 
look for us. The sea was smiling as ever, and the 
little launch came dancing over the rose and ame¬ 
thyst water as if there never had been a storm to 
ruffle it. I caught sight of Molly first, then I 
noticed another woman, sitting between her and 
Davidson. As she leaned forward to search the 
shore I was startled with the likeness of her face 
to Cartwright’s. Yet there was-a difference. Her 
beauty was gracious and human, and—well, com¬ 
fortable is the only word I can think of for it. 

As they came near the beach she saw just Sim¬ 
mons and me and the staring natives. She cried 
out sharply and swayed a little. I saw Davidson 
put his arm out as if he would shield her from a 
blow. Faithful fellow, Davidson, and he got his 
reward at last. 

It was Cartwright’s Charlotte, and Cartwright 
was not there to meet her. Lulukuila had seen to 
that. 


Margaret Adelaide Wilson: 


THE ARCHBISHOP OF RHEIMS 

It was the Feast of the Assumption, and the 
archbishop, as he left his palace and stepped into 
the summer sunlight, breathed a prayer of thanks¬ 
giving for the brilliance that glowed about him. 
For, during the mass which was about to be cele¬ 
brated in the greqt cathedral, the passion of his 
life, one of the most impressive moments occurred 
when the sun shot its rays with pure and dazzling 
radiance for the first time into the middle of the 
apse. With exact calculation the architect had 
arranged that this took place on the fete day of 
St. Remi, the patron saint of Rheims, and when the 
day was overcast or rain obscured the sun it seemed 
to the archbishop that the Almighty was expressing 
His displeasure of some negligence or wrongful act 
on the part of the guardian of this, to him, most 
precious and wonderful trust in the world. 

But today the sun’s effulgence surpassed in 
warmth and splendor that of any August fifteenth 
in the archbishop’s memory, and brought into his 
heart an intense calm and peace which even the 
knowledge that German guns were despoiling Bel¬ 
gium, not many leagues away, could not entirely 
dispel. Nevertheless, the remembrance cast a 
shadow over the spirituality of his broad brow, and 
his lips moved in silent supplication for the suffer¬ 
ing inhabitants, and that the onward march of the 
invaders would be stayed before their presence 
desecrated the sacred soil of France. 


THE ARCHBISHOP OF RHEIMS 


133 


In rapt contemplation he stood, kindliness and 
benevolence radiating from his mild face, crowned 
with its silver halo of hair. His large, gentle eyes 
wandered over the massive pile raising its lofty 
steeples in eloquent testimony to the omnipotence 
of God; its slender spires, pointed portals, and 
lancet windows indicating the heights to which the 
thoughts and lives of men must reach before per¬ 
fection can be attained. 

When the archbishop emerged from the sacristy 
at the end of the long procession of choir, acolytes 
and coped priests, and entered the cathedral, the 
voice of the mighty organ was rolling through the 
edifice in rushing waves of melody, which ebbed 
and flowed in and out among the great columns in 
a wealth of harmonies, whose exquisite beauty, as 
they broke around him, caused a band to tighten 
about the old man’s throat. 

The crossing was filled with a throng of devout 
worshippers whose faces wore a look of expectancy, 
for France, la belle France, was threatened by a 
danger greater than even the oldest among them 
could recall. War had always been a horror, but 
today it transcended, in the vague reports that 
reached them from stricken Belgium, the worst the 
most imaginative of them could conceive, and the 
thought haunted them, in spite of their faith that 
the Blessed Virgin would not permit such a calam¬ 
ity to befall France, that, notwithstanding their 
entreaties, the hand of the Hun might descend on 
her as it had on her equally innocent and unpro¬ 
voking neighbor. 

The procession wound slowly to its place in the 
choir, and the organ broke into the great, swelling 
chords of Gounod’s mass, Mors et Vita. The 


134 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


music, inspired by the sublime grandeur of the 
sanctuary where it had partly been composed, pro¬ 
claimed an unshakable faith in the majesty and 
power of the Almighty, whose protecting arm 
stands between His children and harm. Gradu¬ 
ally the tense look of alarm on the faces of the 
congregation changed to the serenity of souls in the 
presence of God. 

The organ’s voice subsided to a breath, wafted 
in and out among the incense-filled recesses of the 
cathedral like the rustling of angels’ wings, and 
the deep-toned peal of the great cathedral bell 
rang through the tense stillness. All at once a 
shaft of pure radiance shot into the center of the 
apse from the Angel’s Spire. Straight as a dart 
it descended until it found the jeweled arms of the 
cross. Here it rested, throwing out myriad rays of 
effulgence, as if through them the Spirit of the 
Founder of their faith was renewing His promises 
of salvation to His flock. 

A breathless hush rested on the congregation 
until, in an ecstasy of triumph, the organ burst 
once more into a paean of praise. The procession 
receded into the remote spaces of the cathedral, 
and the worshippers passed out into the sunlit 
square. As they walked by the statue of Joan of 
Arc, who sits on her charger before the cathedral, 
many paused and spoke in low, reverent tones of 
the sacrifice she had made for France, and won¬ 
dered if the same spirit of loyalty would spring 
into life if the land of their adoration stood in need 
of defense. 

Through the great western rose window of the 
cathedral the sun was casting quivering masses of 
rubies, topazes, emeralds, sapphires and amethysts 


THE ARCHBISHOP OF RHEIMS 


135 


to the floor below, where they lay in gorgeous pro¬ 
fusion, melting one into the other in extravagant 
richness of beauty. 

An old man stood in contemplation of the splen¬ 
dor of that mighty work of the ages which for a 
century and a half had been the especial care of 
his forefathers, and to which end, with reverent 
preparation, each succeeding generation of his fam¬ 
ily had been trained. To the old vitrier the win¬ 
dows in the sacred structure were not only a holy 
trust, but a prized heritage, each separate particle 
to be watched and studied, as a mother guards its 
offspring from possible injury, and passed on to 
posterity in as perfect a condition as it was re¬ 
ceived. 

So deep was his absorption in the magnificence 
of the spectacle before him that he did not notice 
the approaching step of the archbishop. The eccle¬ 
siastic laid his hand on Monneuze’s shoulder. 

“Exquisite, is it not, mon vieux?” he asked in 
his resonant voice. “I have never seen the colors 
more superb than they are this afternoon.” 

The old glass-maker started, and turned toward 
him. The expression of ecstatic wonder still lin¬ 
gered on his lined face, from which, behind his 
heavy glasses, peered eyes round and childlike in 
their unquestioning trust. 

“The beautv of it passes belief, Monseigneur,” 
he murmured fervently. “Oh, that I knew the art 
of reproducing those marvelous colors! It is the 
sorrow of my life that, try as I may, I can never 
duplicate the depth, the richness—” he shook his 
head dejectedly, and fixed his eyes once more on 
the flaming window. 

“Ah, Jean,” answered the archbishop a little 


136 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


sadly. “So it is with all of us; no matter how 
hard we strive, we never reach the goal to which 
we are pressing. Our attainments are ever a dis¬ 
appointment to us. We can only labor on, and live 
in the hope that on the Last Day, when we see our 
endeavors through the eyes of the Blessed Re¬ 
deemer, we may find that His estimate of them, 
graded on the knowledge of our limitations, will 
be higher than ours. It may he that our efforts and 
the sincerity of our motives will be judged instead 
of the results we were able to achieve. We must 
remember that no man can do bigger things than 
his capacity allows.” 

The vitrier did not reply. His eyes wavered 
from the magnificence above him to the spiritual¬ 
ized countenance at his side. It surprised him that 
the archbishop, renowned alike for his piety and 
good works, should speak so slightingly of his life. 

The ecclesiastic had turned and was gazing at 
the representation of the Almighty on the great 
rose window of the south transept. Something of 
the sublimity of the conception and execution of 
the masterpiece was reflected on his face, over 
which still hovered an expression of humility. His 
eyes left the window and swept up the vast 
stretches of the cathedral, over mighty pillars, 
great misty aisles, glorious choir, its beauty half 
shrouded in the encroaching shadows, until they 
reached the very penetralia of the Lady Chapel. 

“Ah, Jean,” he went on in a deep, vibrant 
voice, “great is God’s goodness that He has seen 
fit to confide this marvelous structure to our keep¬ 
ing. May we so live that, when we are called to 
give an accounting of our stewardship, we may hear 
the wondrous words: ‘Well done, good and faithful 
servant!’ ” 


THE ARCHBISHOP OF RHEIMS 


137 


The lips of the aged vitrier moved in a mur¬ 
mured “Amen/’ and they watched in silence the 
sun, as it threw its dying rays through the window 
to their feet. They fell in a great splash of red, 
like blood, on the pavement, and a shudder shook 
the archbishop’s frame. He passed his hand over 
his forehead, and the shadow that had clouded his 
face in the morning settled once more on it. Bid¬ 
ding the old glass-painter good night, he moved up 
the dusky nave. 

Days and weeks slipped by, and the gray 
waves of the invaders rolled nearer to Rheims. 
Notwithstanding the heroic, almost superhuman, 
efforts of her sons, the vandals swept across her 
borders into France, ravishing, desecrating, de¬ 
stroying in a frenzy of frightfulness so terrible 
that the world, shocked beyond belief, stood aghast 
and incredulous at the reports that reached it. 

The archbishop of Rheims, with others who be¬ 
lieved that there was good in the worst of men, at 
first resolutely declined to credit the rumors that 
reached him. But when, at last, driven before the 
attacking force, the refugees, with terror-stricken 
faces, came breathlessly into the city, the mothers 
clutching their babies to their breasts, with little 
tots scarce able to toddle clinging to their skirts 
and, throwing themselves on his mercy, recounted 
with white lips, in a dull monotone, the horrors that 
had befallen them and theirs, the hopeful trust in 
the old priest’s face turned into a crushed look of 
sadness as the knowledge came home to him that 
his faith in man was an illusion of which, at the 
end of his life, he was to be bereaved. 

He lent such aid as lay in his power to the 
stricken peasants, and when the wounded, friend 


138 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


and foe, were brought in and, overflowing hospital 
and private dwelling, still clamored for succor, he 
threw open the great sanctuary to the Germans 
with the thought that here they would at least be 
safe from the shells that were beginning to fall on 
the outlying districts of the city. 

Then one night, when the foreboding chill of 
autumn had replaced summer’s golden warmth, the 
archbishop was awakened by a noise, apparently 
in his bedroom, which shook the house to its foun¬ 
dations. He rose hurriedly and, going to the win¬ 
dow, saw that the east was ablaze with light. Al¬ 
though the dawn was approaching, he realized that 
the refulgence that flared across the horizon was 
man-made, for the rumble of mighty guns which, 
when he had retired the night before, had been 
louder and more resonant than before, had risen to 
a threatening roar that forced a sickening sense 
of impotence upon him. 

Startled by the sudden proximity of the enemy, 
the archbishop dressed hurriedly and made his way 
to the Square, already half filled with people. An 
old woman approached him and, with blanched 
face, asked whether he thought the city would be 
shelled and destroyed, as were the Belgian towns. 
He shook his head despairingly, and his lips 
framed the words: 

“God forbid!” 

As she turned away he prayed fervently that, 
even though the pillaging hordes might, in their 
fury against the inhabitants, devastate the city, 
the fact that they claimed the same God as their 
Savior to whose glory the cathedral had been 
erected would prove its safeguard and protection. 
But, even as he prayed, a great bomb blazed a trail 


THE ARCHBISHOP OF RHEIMS 


139 


through the gray light, and hurled itself on the 
roof of the sacred edifice. It exploded with con¬ 
centrated fury, tearing off great pieces of the roof 
and casting them at his feet. 

“They’ve found the range!’’ excitedly exclaimed 
a man who stood near the archbishop. “Can it be 
possible that they intend to destroy the cathedral ?” 

The archbishop was staring with incredulous 
eyes at the gaping wound the shot had made. 

“No,” he declared firmly, without removing his 
eyes. “It is not possible. This injury is an un¬ 
fortunate mistake. Sacred edifices are protected by 
human and moral laws, and, besides, the Cathedral 
of Rheims, because of its perfection, belongs to all 
time and all peoples. No one destroys his own 
heritage.” 

Nevertheless, the remembrance of the destruc¬ 
tion of Louvain and the desecration of many 
churches by the Germans since their treacherous 
entrance into Belgium, when they cast aside men’s 
faith in their honor, seared itself across his mind. 
Their acts had disproved their vaunted belief in 
God which, had it existed, would have shown itself 
in a reverent solicitude for His dwelling place. 

The words had hardly left his lips when a 
shower of explosives fell on and about the massive 
structure, hewing out huge lumps of the masonry, 
which descended in a deluge of stone on the roofs 
of the adjacent houses. 

A glare of light flared behind the great rose- 
window, throwing for the last time a blaze of glory 
into the horror-stricken faces below; then it burst 
into a thousand fragments that shivered to pieces 
on the pavement of the Square. 

Surrounded by the gleaming bits of imprisoned 


140 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


sunshine, Jean Monneuze gazed with wide, unbe¬ 
lieving eyes at the yawning space in the fa£ade. 
The thought took shape in his mind that this act 
of profanation could not be true, that it must be 
some hideous nightmare at which he would scoff in 
the morning, and he prayed aloud that the awaken¬ 
ing would be soon, that he might be relieved of 
the torture he was undergoing. A voice at his 
elbow roused him. 

“M ay God curse the Kaiser, and the rest of 
his breed, for this sacrilege!” 

The old vitrier turned quickly, the fury of a 
mother for her ravished young in his working face. 

“Amen!” he exclaimed harshly. 

A group of people near him parted, and out of 
it Jean saw the archbishop slowly advance. The 
look of intense suffering on his face had driven 
away the peace that formerly rested there, but his 
countenance was untinged by venom or desire for 
revenge. His sunken eyes met the glass-maker’s, 
and Jean, a sob clutching at his throat, fell on 
his knees and began gathering up the gems of shat¬ 
tered glass that lay at his feet. He rose as the 
archbishop reached him, and held out the fragments 
to him. For a moment they gazed into each other’s 
eyes without speaking, then a wistful little smile 
flitted across the archbishop’s face. 

“The Lord hath given—the Lord hath taken 
away.” There was a pause while he waited for 
the response; but the old vitrier 3 s chin had sunk on 
his breast, and his eyes, swimming with tears, were 
fastened on the gleaming bits of glass. Once more 
the archbishop’s voice fell on his ears: 

“Blessed be the name of the Lord.” There was 
an accent of surprised reproach in the patient 


THE ARCHBISHOP OF RHEIMS 


141 


tones, but only pity shone on the gentle countenance 
as he noted the quivering face of the old man who, 
turning abruptly away, disappeared into the crowd. 

A chorus of voices rose shrilly above the shriek¬ 
ing of the shells: 

“The roof is on fire! It’s burning!” 

The words galvanized the archbishop into ac¬ 
tion. 

“The wounded!” he exclaimed. “They will 
perish if they remain where they are!” 

“Let ’em!” retorted a thick-set ouvrier. He 
thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his 
trousers. “They deserve to die, and they’re not fit 
to live!” He turned brusquely away, and stared 
with sullen eyes at the smoking roof from which 
jets of flame were spurting. 

A look of anguish crept over the archbishop’s 
face. Could it be that his flock had caught so little 
of the spirit of his teaching that, when it was put 
to the test, it collapsed as the mighty edifice was 
crumbling under the demolishing shells? If this 
were so, it explained the destruction of the cathe¬ 
dral as the retribution for the failure of his min¬ 
istry. His life work, as well as his life trust, was 
disintegrating before his eyes. Even Jean Mon- 
neuze, the spirituality of whose life, in daily con¬ 
tact with the inspiring sanctuary they both adored, 
had faltered under the supreme test, and if Jean, 
for whom he would have vouched under all circum¬ 
stances, would succumb, how could he expect that 
the others, with so incomparably less sustaining 
spiritual strength in their lives, would respond to 
the call. The bitterness of Gethsemane fell on 
him, and his face, lighted by the glare from the 
burning structure, was drawn with pain. 


142 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


A shell hurtled through the air, and fell against 
the portal. Rending from its place the head of the 
Angel with the Smile, it flung it into the Square. 
Angry mutterings rose from the crowd as the 
ouvrier picked up the head and held it aloft for 
every one to see. 

The archbishop stepped up on the base of the 
pedestal of the statue to the Maid of Orleans. He 
raised his hand impressively. 

“My children,” he began in a voice tremulous 
with emotion. “The Master admonishes us to love 
our enemies, to do good to them that hate us, to 
pray for them that despitefully use us and perse¬ 
cute us. If we do good only to those who love us, 
how much better are we than the heathen? Did 
you not see that, despite its destruction, the Angel 
of Rheims smiled on?” He spread out his arms 
in an agony of entreaty. “Oh my children,” he 
pleaded, “do not fail me now!” 

The rays of the rising sun shone on his face 
and illumined it with unearthly radiance. The 
people stood spellbound before him. 

Once more he raised his hand and, pointing to 
the burning cathedral, cried in a resonant voice 
that rang like a clarion: 

“The wounded! Who helps me rescue them?” 

Still that tense silence hung over the motionless 
throng which the crackling of the flames, and the 
moaning and singing of death as it whistled through 
the air, only served to accentuate. 

The old vitrier elbowed his way through the 
crowd and, laying his hand on the base of the 
statue, said in a clear, loud voice: 

“Monseigneur, I will assist.” 

In the uncertain light the two old men stood 


THE ARCHBISHOP OF RHEIMS 


143 


scanning the quivering, upturned faces. Then a 
sudden change swept over the mass. 

“Au secours! Au secours!” The voice of the 
crowd rose as from one man in a cry, increasing in 
volume with each repetition until, in the archbish¬ 
op’s ears, it sounded like a shout of victory. The 
men turned, and surged toward the entrance of the 
cathedral. 

The archbishop’s face went white, and he 
grasped the spurred foot of the Maid for support. 
He closed his eyes, and his lips moved spas¬ 
modically. Then they parted in a smile of such 
celestial beauty that the old vitrier, standing at his 
feet, averted his eyes as though unable to bear the 
sight. 

The large central door of the cathedral swung 
open, and four men, carrying a litter on which lay 
a gray, motionless form, emerged. They were fol¬ 
lowed by others in what seemed an endless pro¬ 
cession, gently bearing their burdens through the 
showers of flying pieces of granite statuary and 
structure stone which the shells were cleaving from 
the facade. 

The flames that were devouring the roof rose 
in a dull roar; a great bomb crashed through the 
hallowed walls, and fell on the palace, where it 
exploded with terrific force. 

The archbishop looked silently at the ruin of 
his home, then he concentrated his attention on the 
stream of wounded still flowing from the mjitilated 
pile, and directed and guided the movements of the 
rescuers. When the last of the sufferers had been 
removed to a place of safety, he stepped down 
from the pedestal and, entering a little hoiise on 
the other side of the Square, mounted the stairs 
until he reached a small room which faced the east. 


144 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 

He entered and, softly closing the door, walked 
to the window, from which the glass had fallen. 
Kneeling down in the chill morning air he gazed 
out at the blackened, smoking husk, his soul in his 
eyes, as one kneels by the bedside of all that life 
holds dear, waiting with bated breath for the final 
dissolution of soul from body with the dull knowl¬ 
edge that, with the passing of that spirit, the light 
of the world is extinguished. 

Still he watches, noting day by day the destruc¬ 
tion by wanton shells of one of man’s most glorious 
tributes to God, ever with the patient look of suffer¬ 
ing on his face, as though the prayer from cease¬ 
less repetition had crystallized on his brain: 

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
they do!” 

Emily TV. Scott. 


t 


THE TRAWNBEIGHS 

The Trawnbeighs were the sort of people who 
“dressed for dinner” even when, as sometimes hap¬ 
pened, they had no dinner in the house to dress for. 
It is perhaps unnecessary to add that the Trawn¬ 
beighs were English. Indeed, on looking back, I 
often feel that to my first apparently flippant state¬ 
ment it is unnecessary to add anything. For to 
one who knew Mr. and Mrs. Trawnbeigh, Edwina, 
Violet, Maud and Cyril, it was the first and last 
w r ord on them; their alpha and omega, together 
with all that went between. Not that the state¬ 
ment is flippant, far from it. There is in it a seri¬ 
ousness, a profundity, an immense philosophic im¬ 
port. At times it has almost moved me to lift my 
hat, very much as one does for reason of state, or 
religion, or death. 

This, let me hasten to explain, is not at all the 
way I feel when I put on evening clothes myself, 
which I do at least twice out of my every three 
hundred and sixty-five opportunities. No born 
American could feel that way about his own dress 
coat. He sometimes thinks he does; he often—and 
isn’t it boresome?—pretends he does. But he real¬ 
ly doesn’t. As a matter of unimportant fact, the 
born American may have “dressed” every evening 
of his grown up life. But if he found himself on 
an isolated, played out Mexican coffee and vanilla 
finca, with a wife, four children, a tiled roof that 


146 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


leaked whenever there was a norther, an unceiled 
scila, through the bamboo partitions of which a 
cold, wet wind howled sometimes for a week at a 
time, with no money, no capacity for making any, 
no prospects and no cook—under these depressing 
circumstances it is impossible to conceive of an 
American dressing for dinner every night at a 
quarter before seven in any spirit but one of ghast¬ 
ly humor. 

With the Trawnbeighs’ performance of this 
sacred rite, however, irony and humor had nothing 
to do. The Trawnbeighs had a robust sense of fun 
(so, I feel sure, have pumpkins and turnips and the 
larger varieties of the nutritious potato family), 
but humor, when they didn’t recognize it, bewil¬ 
dered them, and it always struck them as just a 
trifle underbred, when they did. 

Trawnbeigh had come over to Mexico—“come 
out from England,” he would have expressed it— 
as a kind of secretary to his cousin. Sir Somebody 
Something, who was building a harbor or a railway 
or a canal (I don’t believe Trawnbeigh himself 
ever knew just what it was) for a British company 
down in the hot country. 

Mrs. Trawnbeigh, with her young, was to fol¬ 
low on the next steamer a month later; and as she 
was in midocean when Sir Somebody suddenly died 
of yellow fever, she did not learn of this inoppor¬ 
tune event until it was too late to turn back. Still, 
I doubt whether she would have turned back if she 
could. For, as Trawnbeigh once explained to me, 
at a time when they literally hadn’t enough to eat 
(a hailstorm had not only destroyed his coffee crop 
but had frozen the roots of most of his trees, and 
the price of vanilla had fallen from ten cents a 


THE TRAWNBEIGHS 


147 


bean to three and a half), leaving England at all 
had necessitated “burning their bridges behind 
them.” He did not tell me the nature of their 
bridges nor whether they had made much of a 
blaze. In fact, that one, vague, inflammatory allu¬ 
sion was the nearest approach to a personal con¬ 
fidence Trawnbeigh was ever known to make in all 
his fifteen years of Mexican life. 

The situation, when he met Mrs. Trawnbeigh 
and the children on the dock at Vera Cruz, was 
extremely dreary, arid at the end of a month it had 
grown much worse, although the Trawnbeighs ap¬ 
parently didn’t think so. They even spoke and 
wrote as if their affairs were looking up a bit. 
For, after a few weeks of visiting among kindly 
compatriots at Vera Cruz and Rebozo, Mrs. Trawn¬ 
beigh became cook for some English engineers 
(there were seven of them) in a sizzling, mosqui- 
toey, feverish mudhole on the Isthmus of Tehuan¬ 
tepec. 

The Trawnbeighs didn’t call it cook! Neither 
did the seven engineers. I don’t believe the engi¬ 
neers even thought of it as cook. What Mrs. 
Trawnbeigh thought of it will never be known. 
How could they, when that lady, after feeding the 
four little Trawnbeighs (or rather the four 
young Trawnbeighs; they had never been little) 
a meal I think they called “the nursery tea,” 
managed every afternoon, within the next two 
hours, first, to create out of nothing a perfectly 
edible dinner for nine persons, and, secondly, to 
receive them all at seven forty-five, in a red- 
striped, lemon satin ball gown (it looked like poi¬ 
sonous wall paper), eleven silver bangles, a cameo 
necklace, with an ostrich tip sprouting from the 
top of her head? 


148 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


Trawnbeigh, too, was in evening clothes; and 
they didn’t call it cooking; they spoke of it as 
“looking after the mess” or “keeping an eye on the 
young chaps’ livers.” Nevertheless, Mrs. Trawn- 
beigh, daughter of the late, the Honorable Cyril 
Cosby Godolphin Dundas and the late Clare Wal- 
purga Emmeline Moate, cooked—and cooked hard 
—for almost a year; at the end of which time she 
was stricken with what she was pleased to refer to 
as “a bad go of fevah.” 

Fortunately they were spared having to pass 
around the hat, although it would have amounted 
to that if Trawnbeigh hadn’t, after the pleasant 
English fashion, “come into some money.” In the 
United States, people know to a cent what they 
may expect to inherit; and then they sometimes 
don’t get it. But in England there seems to be an 
endless succession of retired and unmarried army 
officers who die every little while in Jermyn Street 
and leave two thousand pounds to a distant rela¬ 
tive they have never met. Something like this hap¬ 
pened to Trawnbeigh, and on the prospect of his 
legacy he was able to pull out of the Tehuantepec 
mudhole and restore his wife to her usual state of 
health in the pure and bracing air of Rebozo. 

Various things can be done with two thousand 
pounds, but just what shall be done ought to de¬ 
pend very largely on whether they happen to be 
one’s first two thousand or one’s last. Trawnbeigh, 
however, invested his (“interred” would be a more 
accurate term) quite as if they never would be 
missed. The disposition to be a country gentleman 
was in Trawnbeigh’s blood. Indeed, the first im¬ 
pression one received from the family was that 
everything they did was in their blood. It never 


THE TRAWNBEIGHS 


149 


seemed to me that Trawnbeigh had immediately 
sunk the whole of his little fortune in the old, 
small, and dilapidated coffee finca so much because 
he was dazzled by the glittering financial future 
the shameless owner (another Englishman, by the 
way) predicted for him, as because to own an estate 
and live on it was, so to speak, his natural element. 

He had tried, while Mrs. Trawnbeigh was cook¬ 
ing on the Isthmus, to get something to do. But 
there was really nothing in Mexico he could do. 
He was splendidly strong, and, in the United 
States, he very cheerfully and with no loss of self- 
respect or point of view would have temporarily 
shoveled wheat or coal, or driven a team, or worked 
on the street force, as many another Englishman of 
noble lineage has done before and since, but in the 
tropics an Anglo-Saxon cannot be a day laborer. 
He can’t because he can’t. 

There was in Mexico no clerical position open 
to Trawnbeigh, because he did not know Spanish. 
It is significant that after fifteen consecutive years 
of residence in the country none of the Trawn- 
beighs knew Spanish. To be, somehow and some¬ 
where, an English country gentleman of a well- 
known, slightly old-fashioned type was as much 
Trawnbeigh’s destiny as it is the destiny of, say, 
a polar bear to be a polar bear, or a camel to be a 
camel. As soon as he got his two thousand pounds 
he became one. 

When I first met them all he had been one for 
about ten years. I had recently settled in Trawn¬ 
beigh’s neighborhood, which in Mexico means that 
my ranch was a hard day-and-a-half ride from his, 
over roads that are not roads but merely ditches 
full of liquefied mud on the level stretches, and 


150 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


ditches full of assorted bowlders on the ascents. 
So, although we looked neighborly on a small map, 
I might not have had the joy of meeting the Trawn- 
beighs for years if my mule hadn’t gone lame one 
day when I was making the interminable trip to 
Rebozo. 

Trawnbeigh’s place was seven miles from the 
main road, and as I happened to be near the part¬ 
ing of the ways when the olf hind leg of Catalina 
began to limp, I decided to leave her with my mozo 
at an Indian village until a pack train should pass 
by (there is always some one in a pack train who 
can remove a bad shoe), while I proceeded on the 
mozo’s mule to the Trawnbeiglis’. My usual stop¬ 
ping place for the night was five miles farther on, 
and the Indian village was—well, it was an Indian 
village. 

He put me up not only that night, but as my 
mozo didn’t appear until late the next afternoon, a 
second night as well. And when I at last rode 
away, it was with the feeling of having learned 
from the Trawnbeighs a great lesson. 

In the first place they couldn’t have expected 
me; they couldn’t possibly have expected any one. 
And it was a hot afternoon. But as it was the 
hour at which people at “home” dropped in for tea, 
Mrs. Trawnbeigh and her three plain, heavy look¬ 
ing daughters were perfectly prepared to dispense 
hospitality to any number of mythical friends. 

They had on hideous, but distinctly “dressy” 
dresses of amazingly stamped materials known, I 
believe, as “summer silks,” and they were all four 
tightly laced. Current fashion in Paris, London 
and New York by no means insisted on small, 
smooth, round waists, but the Trawnbeigh women 


THE TRAWNBEIGHS 


151 


had them, because (as it gradually dawned on me) 
to have had any other kind would have been a con¬ 
cession to anatomy and the weather. To anything 
so compressible as one’s anatomy, or as vulgarly 
impartial as the weather, the Trawnbeighs simply 
did not concede. I never could get over the feeling 
that they all secretly regarded weather in general 
as a kind of popular institution, of vital importance 
only to the middle class. 

Cyril, an extremely beautiful young person of 
twenty-two, who had been playing tennis (by him¬ 
self) on the asoleadero, was in “flannels,” and 
Trawnbeigh admirably looked the part in gray, 
middle-aged riding things, although, as I discov¬ 
ered before leaving, their stable at the time con¬ 
sisted of one senile burro with ingrowing hoofs. 

From the first, it all seemed too flawless to be 
true. I had never visited in England, but I doubt 
if there is another country whose literature gives 
one as definite and lasting an impression of its 
home life. Perhaps this is because the life of fami¬ 
lies of the class to which the Trawnbeighs belonged 
proceeds in England by such a series of definite 
and traditional episodes. 

In a household like theirs, the unexpected must 
have a devil of a time in finding a chance to hap¬ 
pen. For, during my visit, absolutely nothing hap¬ 
pened that I hadn’t long since chuckled over when 
making the acquaintance of Jane Austen, Thack¬ 
eray, George Eliot and Anthony Trollope; not to 
mention Ouida (it was Cyril, of course, who from 
time to time struck the Ouida note), and the more 
laborious performances of Mrs. Humphry Ward. 
They all of them did at every tick of the clock pre¬ 
cisely what they ought to have done. They were a 


152 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


page, the least bit crumpled, torn from “Half 
Hours With the Best Authors,” and cast, dear 
Heaven! upon a hillside in darkest Mexico. 

Of course we had tea in the garden. There 
wasn’t any garden, but we nevertheless had tea in 
it. The house would have been cooler, less glar¬ 
ing, and free from the venomous little rodadorcis 
that stung the backs of my hands full of micro¬ 
scopic polka dots; but we all strolled out to a spot 
some fifty yards away where a bench, half a dozen 
shaky, home made chairs and a rustic table were 
most imperfectly shaded by three tattered banana 
trees. 

“We love to drink tea in the dingle-dangle,” 
Mrs. Trawnbeigh explained. How the tea tray 
itself got to the dingle-dangle I have only a general 
suspicion, for when we arrived it was already there, 
equipped with caddy, cozy, a plate of buttered 
toast, a pot of strawberry jam and all the rest of 
it. But, try as I might, I simply could not rid 
myself of the feeling that at least two footmen had 
arranged it all and then discreetly retired; a feel¬ 
ing that also sought to account for the tray’s subse¬ 
quent removal, which took place while Trawnbeigh, 
Cyril, Edwina and I walked over to inspect the 
asoleadero and washing tanks. I wanted to look 
back; but something (the fear,, perhaps, of being 
turned into a pillar of salt) restrained me. 

With most English speaking persons in that 
part of the world, conversation has to do with cof¬ 
fee, coffee and—coffee. The Trawnbeighs, how¬ 
ever, scarcely touched on the insistent topic. While 
we sat on the low wall of the dilapidated little 
asoleadero, we discussed pheasant shooting, and the 
best places for haberdashery and “Gladstone 


THE TRAWNBEIGHS 


153 


Bags.” Cyril, as if it were but a matter of inclina¬ 
tion, said he thought he might go over for the 
shooting that year; a cousin had asked him “to 
make a seventh.” I never found out what this 
meant, and didn’t have the nerve to ask. 

“Bertie shoots the twelfth, doesn’t he?” Edwina 
here inquired. 

To which her brother replied, as if she had 
shown a distressing ignorance of some fundamental 
date in history, like 1066 or 1215: “Bertie always 
shoots the twelfth.” 

The best place for haberdashery, in Mr. 
Trawnbeigh’s opinion, was “the Stores.” But Cyril 
preferred a small shop in Bond Street, maintaining 
firmly, but with good humor, that it was not mere¬ 
ly, as “the pater” insisted, because the fellow 
charged more, but because one didn’t “run the risk 
of seeing some beastly bounder in a cravat uncom¬ 
monly like one’s own.” Trawnbeigh, as a sedate 
parent bordering on middle age, felt obliged to 
stand up for the more economical “Stores,” but it 
was evident that he really admired Cyril’s exclusive 
principles and approved of them. Edwina cut 
short the argument with an abrupt question. 

“I say,” she inquired anxiously, “has the dress¬ 
ing bell gone yet?” The dressing bell hadn’t gone, 
but it soon went, for Mr. Trawnbeigh, after looking 
at his watch, bustled off to the house and rang it 
himself. Then we withdrew to our respective 
apartments to dress for dinner. 

“I’ve put you in the north wing, old man; 
there’s always a breeze in the wing,” my host de¬ 
clared as he ushered me into a bamboo shed they 
used apparently for storing corn and iron imple¬ 
ments of an agricultural nature. But there was 


154 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


also in the room a recently made up cot with real 
sheets, a tin bath tub, hot and cold water in two 
earthenware jars, and an empty packing case up¬ 
holstered in oilcloth. When Trawnbeigh sjDoke of 
this last as a “wash-hand-stand,” I knew I had 
indeed strayed from life into the realms of mid- 
Victorian romance. 

The breeze Trawnbeigh had referred to de¬ 
veloped in the violent Mexican way, while I was 
enjoying the bath tub, into an unmistakable 
norther. Water fell on the roof like so much lead, 
and then sprang off (some of it did) in thick, 
round streams from the tin spouts; the wind 
screamed in and out of the tiles overhead, and 
through the north wing’s blurred window the writh¬ 
ing banana trees of the dingle-dangle looked like 
strange things one sees in an aquarium. 

As soon as I could get into my clothes again— 
a bath was as far as I was able to live up to the 
Trawnbeigh ideal—I went into the sala, where the 
dinner table was already set with a really heart¬ 
rending attempt at splendor. I have said that 
nothing happened with which I had not a sort of 
literary acquaintance; but I was wrong. While 
I was standing there wondering how the Trawn- 
beighs had been able all those years to “keep it 
up,” a window in the next room blew open with 
a bang. I ran in to shut it; but before I reached 
it, I stopped short and, as hastily and quietly as I 
could, tiptoed back to the “wing.” For the next 
room was the kitchen, and at one end of it Trawn¬ 
beigh, in a shabby but perfectly fitting dress coat, 
his trousers rolled up half way to his knees, was 
patiently holding an umbrella over his wife’s sa¬ 
cred dinner gown, while she—bebangled, be- 


THE TRAWNBEIGHS 


155 


cameoed, beplumed, and stripped to the buff— 
masterfully cooked our dinner on the brassero. 

To me it was all extremely wonderful, and the 
wonder of it did not lessen during the five years 
in which, on my way to and from Rebozo, I stopped 
over at the Trawnbeighs’ several times a year. 
For, although I knew that they were often finan¬ 
cially all but down and out, the endless red tape 
of their daily life never struck me as being merely 
a pathetic bluff. Their rising bells and dressing 
bells, their apparent dependence on all sorts of 
pleasant accessories that simply did not exist, their 
occupations (I mean those on which I did not have 
to turn a tactful back, such as botanizing, crewel 
work, painting horrible water colors and composing 
long lists of British sounding things to be “sent 
out from the Stores”), the informality with which 
we waited on ourselves at luncheon and the stately, 
punctilious manner in which we did precisely the 
same thing at dinner, the preordained hour at which 
Mrs. Trawnbeigh and the girls each took a bed¬ 
room candle and said good night, leaving Trawn¬ 
beigh, Cyril and me to smoke a pipe and “do a 
whisky peg” (Trawnbeigh had spent some years 
in India), the whole inflexibly insular scheme of 
their existence was more, infinitely more, than a 
bluff. It was a placid, tenacious clinging to the 
straw of their ideal in a great, deep sea of poverty, 
discomfort and desolation. 

And it had its reward, for after fourteen years 
of Mexican life, Cyril was almost exactly what he 
would have been had he never seen the place; and 
Cyril was the Trawnbeighs’ one asset of immense 
value. He was most agreeable to look at, he was 
both related to and connected with many of the 


156 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


most historical sounding ladies and gentlemen in 
England, and he had just the limited, selfish, ami¬ 
able outlook on the world in general that was sure 
(granting the other things) to impress Miss Irene 
Slapp, of Pittsburgh, as the height of both breed¬ 
ing and distinction. 

Irene Slapp had beauty and distinction of her 
own. Somehow, although they all needed the 
money, I don’t believe Cyril would have married 
her if she hadn’t. Anjdiow, one evening in the 
City of Mexico he took her in to dinner at the 
British Legation, where he had been asked to dine 
as a matter of course, and before the second entree 
Miss Slapp was slightly in love, with him and very 
deeply in love with the scheme of life, the stand¬ 
ard, the ideal, or whatever you choose to call it, 
he had inherited and had been brought up, under 
staggering difficulties, to represent. 

“The young beggar has made a pot of money in 
the States,” Trawnbeigh gravely informed me after 
Cyril had spent seven weeks in Pittsburgh— 
whither he had been persuaded to journey on the 
Slapps’s private train. 

“And, you know, I’ve decided to sell the old 
place,” he casually remarked a month or so later. 
“Yes, yes,” he went on, “the young people are be¬ 
ginning to leave us” (I hadn’t noticed any signs of 
impending flight on the part of Edwina, Violet and 
Maud). “Mrs. Trawnbeigh and I want to end our 
days at home. Slapp believes there’s gold on the 
place—or would it be petroleum? He’s welcome 
to it. After all, I’ve never been fearfully keen on 
business.” 

And I rode away pondering, as I always did, 
on the great lesson of the Trawnbeighs. 

Charles Macomb Flandrau. 


THE LIFE BELT 

Out of doors, darkness and sleet; within the 
cottage parlor, a grand fire and a good supper, the 
latter, however, no longer in evidence. 

Four people sat round the hearth: a woman 
not so old in years as aged in looks by what the 
w r ar had done to her; a burly, bearded, middle-aged 
man, her brother; a young, rather stern-visaged 
fellow, the last of her sons; and a girl of twenty 
or so, with a sedate mouth and bright eyes, her 
daughter-in-law to be. The two men were obvi¬ 
ously seafarers. As a matter of fact, the uncle 
was skipper of an ancient tramp which had some¬ 
how survived those three years of perilous pas¬ 
sages ; the nephew, a fisherman before war, after¬ 
wards and until recently in the patrol service, was 
now mate on the same old ship, though he had 
still to make his first trip on her. 

Said Mrs. Cathles, breaking silence, to her 
brother: “Did ye see any U-boats cornin’ home, 
Alick?” Possibly she spoke then just to interrupt 
her own thoughts, for it was not like her to intro¬ 
duce such a subject. 

The skipper was busy charging his pipe. “Is 
it U-boats ye’re askin’ about, Maggie?’’ he said 
slowly, in his loud voice. “I’m tellin’ ye, on that 
last home’ard trip, the peeriscopes was like a 
forest!” 

David Cathles winked to his sweetheart; then 


158 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


perceiving that the answer had scared his mother, 
he said: 

“Come, come, Uncle! Surely ’twasn’t quite so 
bad as that. ‘A forest’ is a bit thick, isn’t it?” 

“Well, there was room for the Hesperus to get 
through, I’ll allow,” the skipper said, striking a 
match extracted from his vest pocket, “otherwise 
I wouldn’t be settin’ here tellin’ the blessed truth 
every time.” He lay back and puffed complacent¬ 
ly, staring at the fire. 

“Never you mind him. Mother,” said the young 
man. “ ’Tis me he’s seekin’ to terrify: he’d just 
as soon I didn’t sail wi’ him, after all; ’fraid o’ me 
learnin’ what a poor skipper he is!” 

Now David ought to have known better. Peo¬ 
ple who are good at giving chaff are seldom good 
at taking it. The girl, however, was quick to note 
the stiffening of the burly figure. 

“Captain Whinn,” she remarked promptly, but 
without haste, “ye must be a terrible brave man to 
ha’ come through all ye ha’ come through, since the 
war started.” 

“Not at all, my dear,” was the modest reply; 
“I’m no braver’n several cases I’ve heard on.” 

David, who had seen his own blunder, was 
grateful to Esther for the diversion, and sought to 
carry it further. 

“Well, Uncle Whinn,” he said respectfully, “I 
think we’d all like to hear what yourself considers 
the pluckiest bit o’ work done by a chap in the 
Merchant Service durin’ the—” 

“Haven’t done it yet.” With a wooden ex¬ 
pression of countenance, the skipper continued to 
stare at the fire. 

Mrs. Cathles spoke. “Ah, David, ’tis little use 


THE LIFE BELT 


159 


tryin’ to pick the bravest when all is so brave. But 
I do think none will ever do braver’n what that 
fishin’ skipper did—him we was hearin’ about yes¬ 
terday.” 

“Av, that was a man!” her son agreed. 

“What was it?” the girl inquired, with a veiled 
glance of indignation at Captain Whinn, who ap¬ 
peared quite uninterested, if not actually bored. 

“You tell it, David,” said the mother. “Big 
moniments ha’ been put up for less.” 

“Go on, David,” murmured Esther. 

“ ’Twas something like this,” he began. “They 
had hauled the nets and was makin’ for port in the 
early mornin’, in hazy weather, when a U-boat 
comes up almost alongside. I reckon they was 
scared, for at that time fishin’ boats was bein’ sunk 
right and left. Then the commander comes on 
deck and asks, in first-class English, which o’ the 
seven was skipper. And the skipper he holds up 
his hand like as if he was a little boy in the school. 
‘All right,’ says the ’Un, ‘I guess you can navigate 
hereabouts—eh ?’ The skipper answers slow that 
he has been navigatin’ thereabouts ’most all his 
life. ‘Very well,’ says the ’Un, ‘there’s a way you 
can save your boat, and the lives o’ them six fine 
men, and your own.’ He waits for a little while; 
then he says: ‘This is the way. You come on 
board here, and take this ship past the defenses 
and into-. That’s all. I give you three min¬ 

utes to make up your mind.’ 

“ ’Tis said the skipper looked like a dyin’ man 
then, and all the time one o’ the U-boat’s guns was 
trained on the fishin’ boat. ‘Time’s up,’ says the 
’Un; ‘which is it to be?’ And the skipper says: 
‘I’ll do what ye want.’ I never heard what his 



160 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


mates said; and I should think their thoughts was 
sort o’ mixed. But they puts him on board the 
U-boat and clears out, as he told them to do; and 
the last they see of him was him standin’ betwixt 
two ’Uns, each wi’ a revolver handy. And then 
him and the ’Uns goes below, and so does the 
U-boat.” 

“He was surely a coward!” the girl exclaimed. 

“Wait a bit,” said David. “Can’t ye see that 
he saved the lives o’ his mates ?” 

“And his own!” she cried. “And he took the 
U-boat in!” 

“Ay, he did that—and her commander, too! 
Oh, he took her in right enough—safe into the big 
steel net! . . . They found him there wi’ the dead 
’Uns, later on—only he had been murdered.” 

Esther clasped her hands. “None braver’n 
that!” she said in a whisper. 

Mrs. Cathles turned to her brother, who had 
not altered his attitude, though he had let his pipe 
go out. 

“Alick,” she said, “what do ye say to that?” 

“ ’Twasn’t so bad,” he said softly, “ ’twasn’t 
so bad, Maggie. Ha’ ye any matches?” 

Shortly afterwards he took his departure, and 
then David saw Esther home. 

On the way she broke a silence by remarking: 
“David, I wish ye wasn’t sailin’ wi’ that man.” 

“How so?” 

“He’s not natural. Something’s wrong about 
him.” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t be savin’ that, Esther,” said 
David. “I allow I can’t make anything o’ Uncle 
Whinn nowadays, but the war has turned many a 
man queerish. Still, I never heard him so boastful- 
like afore tonight—” 


THE LIFE BELT 


161 


’T wasn’t so bad/ ” she quoted resentfully, 

’twasn’t so bad!’—and it the bravest thing a 
human man could do? Oh, David, I do wish ye 
wasn’t sailin’ wi’ him, though he is your uncle. 
He’s a coward—that’s what he is, I’m sure.” 

“I wouldn’t be sayin’ that, neither,” the young 
man gently protested. “He’s maybe feared—I 
surely doubt he is—but that’s not the same as bein’ 
a coward—not by a long chalk.” 

“He’s got neither wife nor family, and he’s 
oldish,” she persisted. 

“But I s’pose life’s sweet even when a man’s 
oldish. As for bein’ feared—out yonder wi’ the 
patrol, I was seldom anything else,” said David 
quietly. 

“David Cathles, I don’t believe ye!” 

“I’m feared now; I’ll be feared all this cornin’ 
trip. Uncle Whinn has got more to be feared o’ 
’n me.” 

“I don’t see that.” 

“Well, if a U-boat gets the better o’ the old 
Hesperus—and she hasn’t got a gun yet—’tis ten 
to one the ’Uns make a prisoner o’ Uncle Whinn. 
’Tisn’t cheerful to ha’ that on your mind all the 
time—is it now, Esther?” 

“I grant ye that, David,” she said, with unex¬ 
pected compunction. “Only he shouldn’t be so big 
about hisself and so small about the pluck o’ other 
men. I’d ha’ said he was feared o’ the very sea 
itself.” 

“A common complaint, my dear! But now ye 
ha’ touched on a thing which is maybe only too 
true, for I could ’most allow my uncle is feared o’ 
death in the water—not that his fear is aught to be 
ashamed on.” 


162 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“Not if a man be modest about hisself!” 

“Uncle Whinn used to be modest enough, and 
careless enough, too, about what happened to him,” 
said David. “But when I was on board wi’ him, 
this mornin’, I see a thing so queer and strange, it 
makes me creep yet.” 

“David, I knew there was something wrong!” 

“And ’twas only a simple matter, after all,” 
he proceeded. “ ’Twas all about a life belt hangin’ 
above his bunk, in the chart room, where he berths 
nowadays. ’Twas an ordinary, everyday life belt, 
but all the time we was settin’ there smokin’ an’ 
chattin’, I noticed he never hardly took his eyes 
off o’ it. And at last I gets up and goes over, 
just to see if there was anything extra about it. 
Well, he was after me like a tiger! ‘Don’t ye put 
finger on that, my lad!’ he says, not so much as if 
he was angered as feared. And then he draws me 
back to the table, and says, as if he was a bit 
’shamed o’ hisself: ‘Ye’ll excuse me, David, but I 
can’t bear to see that there life belt touched. 
T’other day, I was as near as near to killin’ the 
cook—the poor sinner said it needed dustin’. ’Tis 
my foolishness, no doubt, but we’ve all got our 
fancies, and I don’t want the belt to be missin’ or 
unhandy when the time comes. So there it hangs, 
an’ I’ll thank ye for your word, here and now, 
David, that ye won’t never touch it.’ Of course I 
give him my word, but wi’ no great feelin’ o’ 
pleasure. . . . What do ye think about it, Esther?” 

“ ’Tis terrible that a great big man should be 
so feared. Now I’m sort o’ sorry for him. I 
daresay he needs ye badly on his ship, and so I’ll 
say no more about it, David.” 

“Ye always see things right, once ye let your 


THE LIFE BELT 


163 


kind heart go/’ he said tenderly. “And I can’t 
think that Uncle Whinn’ll play the coward if ever 
he’s really up against it. . . . And now, what 
about us two gettin’ married on my next leave?” 

* * 

The Hesperus sailed a couple of days later. 
The outward voyage was completed without mis¬ 
hap or adventure, and she was within a day’s run 
of the home port when her end came. 

After a brief but havoc-working bombardment, 
her helpless skipper gave orders to abandon ship, 
and signaled the enemy accordingly. There were 
two lifeboats,—the third had been smashed,—and 
in the natural course of things David would have 
been in charge of one of them. But Captain Whinn 
decreed otherwise. 

“I want ye wi’ me,” he said to his nephew, as 
they came dow r n from the tottering bridge. “Cast 
off!” he bawled at the boat whose crew included 
the second mate. 

He drew David into the chartroom. 

When they emerged, a couple of minutes later, 
he was wearing the belt, and his countenance was 
pale. But the young man’s was ghastly. 

Now there were blurs of smoke on the horizon. 
Captain Whinn indicated them, remarking: 

“A little bit too late. Poor old Hesperus!” 

The blurs had evidently been observed from the 
U-boat also, for a “Hurry up!” came in the form 
of a shell aimed just high enough to clear the deck. 

Skipper and mate went down the ladder, and 
the boat was cast off. At a safe distance, the row¬ 
ers, at a sign from the skipper, lay on their oars. 
Speedily the U-boat put her victim into a sinking 


164 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


condition. During the operation Whinn neither 
moved nor spoke; seemingly he did not hear the 
several remarks softly addressed to him by his 
nephew. His face was set; all the skin blemishes 
stood out against the tan of many years, upon 
which had come a grayish pallor; there was mois¬ 
ture on his brow. 

Then through the slightly ruffled sea the U- 
boat, her gunners’ job over, moved toward them. 
A hail came from the commander, a tall young 
man with an unslept, nervous look on his thin face. 

“Come alongside, and look sharp about it. I 
want the captain,” he called. 

None of the boat’s crew moved, but all at once 
the elderly cook broke forth in a voice of grievous 
exasperation: 

“Godalmighty, Cap’n, whatever made ye put 
on your best duds? Why the hell didn’t ye get 
into some old slops?—an’ then I could ha’ passed 
for ye easy!” 

The glimmer of a smile appeared in the skip¬ 
per’s eyes, and his mouth quivered pathetically 
just for an instant. Then he said briefly: 

“Get alongside.” 

“Maybe they would take me instead,” said 
David, but again his uncle seemed not to have 
heard. 

Whinn did not speak again until he was stand¬ 
ing on the submarine’s deck. Then steadily he 
addressed his nephew: 

“Kind love to your mother, David; best re¬ 
spects to your young lady.” 

To the crew: “So long, lads,” he said, and gave 
a little wave of the hand. 

Then he was hurried below, and almost before 


THE LIFE BELT 


165 


the Hesperus’ boat was clear, the great engine of 
destruction began to submerge. 

David sat with his face bowed in his hands, 
and now and then a shudder went through him. 

* * 

Two nights later he was back in his mother’s 
house, seated with Esther at the parlor fire, which 
burned as grandly as on that night a month ago. 
Mrs. Cathles had gone to the kitchen to make the 
supper. 

There had been a long silence. Suddenly Da¬ 
vid’s clasp of the girl’s hand tightened almost pain¬ 
fully. 

“Why, what is it, lad?” she exclaimed. 

“Esther, I don’t know what to do. . . . Ye 
see, when I was telling you an’ mother about Uncle 
Whinn, I kept back something—a lot. I couldn’t 
think how to tell the whole tale—to mother, any¬ 
way.” 

“Is it—dreadful, David?” 

“Ay, dreadful—in a way. Well, I’ll try and 
tell yourself now, an’ then, perhaps— ’Sh! I hear 
her cornin’! ’Twill have to wait.” 

Mrs. Cathles came in, but without the expected 
laden tray. She crossed to her accustomed place 
and seated herself. Presently she looked over at 
her son. 

“David, I was thinkin’ just now, and it came 
on me that ye hadn’t told me everything about 
your uncle, my own brother, Alick. Now, dearie, 
ye must not keep aught back. ’Tis my right to 
know, and I can bear a lot nowadays.” She wet¬ 
ted her lips. “David, tell me true, what happened 
to my brother when they got him on board the 
U-boat. Did they—shoot him?” 


166 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“No, Mother”—David cleared his throat— 
“ ’twas far finer’n that! . . . Ah, well, now I’ll tell 
everything. ’Twas this way. You—we’ll never see 
Uncle Whinn again, Mother, but he was a great 
man. He stepped on board that U-boat as brave 
as a lion, and when the ’Un commander spoke to 
him, polite enough, too—he looked at him as if he 
was dirt. And then he give me the messages I ha’ 
told ye. And then they took him below. And then 
the U-boat started for to dive— Now don’t ye be 
too upset, Mother.” 

“Go on, David.” 

“Well, then, the U-boat, as I was tellin’ ye, 
started for to dive. . . . But she wasn’t half under 
when—when she blowed up—all to smash—ex¬ 
ploded into little bits, it seemed—our boat was near 
to bein’ swamped.” David ceased abruptly. 

In the silence the girl rose and went to the 
woman, and put her arm about the bent shoulders. 

David spoke again, in little more than a whis¬ 
per. “ ’Tis not all told; and now comes the worst 
—and the best, too. . . . When all was over on 
the old Hesperus, and we was makin’ ready to 
leave her, Uncle Whinn draws me into the chart- 
room. Without sayin’ anything he takes off his old 
coat and cap and puts on split new ones. After 
that, he takes down the life belt that hung above 
his bunk, and puts it on very careful. Then, at 
last, he speaks to me. ‘David,’ he says, ‘they’re 
nailin’ us skippers in these times, so maybe you 
and me shan’t meet again.’ And he holds out his 
hand. Hardly knowin’ what to say, I says: ‘Even 
if they do take ye prisoner, the war won’t last for 
ever and ever, and maybe ye’ll escape afore long.’ 
He shakes his head, smilin’ a little. ‘If they takes 


THE LIFE BELT 


167 


me, they takes the consequences, and so does I.’ 
And then he tells me his secret— God! to think o’ 
the man’s pluck!” 

David wiped his face. 

“My Uncle Whinn says to me: ‘My lad, I 
thought to tell nobody, but ’twould be too lonesome- 
like for me to go like that. But ye needn’t make a 
story about it. . . . This here life belt,’ says he, 
‘was my own idea. ’Tisn’t made o’ corks. ’Tis 
made o’ high, powerful explosive—enough to wreck 
a battleship. And all I ha’ got to do is just to 
pull this little bit o’ string.’ . . .” 

J. J. Bell. 


AMINA 


Waldo, brought face to face with the actuality 
of the unbelievable—as he himself would have 
worded it—was completely dazed. In silence he 
suffered the consul to lead him from the tepid 
gloom of the interior, through the ruinous door¬ 
way, out into the hot, stunning brilliance of the 
desert landscape. Hassan followed, with never a 
look behind him. Without any word he had taken 
Waldo’s gun from his nerveless hand and carried 
it, with his own and the consul’s. 

The consul strode across the gravelly sand, 
some fifty paces from the southwest corner of the 
tomb, to a bit of not wholly ruined wall from which 
there was a clear view of the doorway side of the 
tomb and of the side with the larger crevice. 

“Hassan,” he commanded, “watch here.” 

Hassan said something in Persian. 

“How many cubs were there?” the consul asked 
Waldo. 

Waldo stared mute. 

“How many young ones did you see?” the con¬ 
sul asked again. 

“Twenty or more,” Waldo made answer. 

“That’s impossible,” snapped the consul. 

“There seemed to be sixteen or eighteen,” 
Waldo reasserted. Hassan smiled and grunted. 
The consul took from him two guns, handed Waldo 
his, and they walked around the tomb to a point 


AMINA 


169 


about equally distant from the opposite corner. 
There was another bit of ruin, and in front of it, 
on the side toward the tomb, was a block of stone 
mostly in the shadow of the wall. 

“Convenient,” said the consul. “Sit on that 
stone and lean against the wall; make yourself 
comfortable. You are a bit shaken, but you will 
be all right in a moment. You should have some¬ 
thing to eat, blit we have nothing. Anyhow, take 
a good swallow of this.” 

He stood by him as Waldo gasped over the raw 
brandy. 

“Hassan will bring you his water bottle before 
he goes,” the consul went on; “drink plenty, for 
you must stay here for some time. And now, pay 
attention to me. We must extirpate these vermin. 
The male, I judge, is absent. If he had been any¬ 
where about, you would not now be alive. The 
young cannot be as many as you say, but, I take 
it, we have to deal with ten, a full litter. We must 
smoke them out. Hassan will go back to camp 
after fuel and the guard. Meanwhile, you and I 
must see that none escape.” 

He took Waldo’s gun, opened the breech, shut 
it, examined the magazine and handed it back to 
him. 

“Now watch me closely,” he said. He paced 
off, looking to his left past the tomb. Presently 
he stopped and gathered several stones together. 

“You see these?” he called. 

Waldo shouted an affirmation. 

The consul came back, passed on in the same 
line, looking to his right past the tomb, and pres¬ 
ently, at a similar distance, put up another tiny 
cairn, shouted again and was again answered. 
Again he returned. 


170 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“Now you are sure you cannot mistake those 
two marks I have made?” 

“Very sure indeed,” said Waldo. 

“It is important,” warned the consul. “I am 
going back to where I left Hassan, to watch there 
while he is gone. You will watch here. You may 
pace as often as you like to either of those stone 
heaps. From either you can see me on my beat. 
Do not diverge from the line from one to the other. 
For as soon as Hassan is out of sight I shall shoot 
any moving thing I see nearer. Sit here till you 
see me set up similar limits for my sentry-go on 
the farther side, then shoot any moving thing not 
on my line of patrol. Keep a lookout all around 
you. There is one chance in a million that the 
male might return in daylight—mostly they are 
nocturnal, but this lair is evidently exceptional. 
Keep a bright lookout. 

“And now listen to me. You must not feel any 
foolish sentimentalism about any fancied resem¬ 
blance of these vermin to human beings. Shoot, 
and shoot to kill. Not only is it our duty, in gen¬ 
eral, to abolish them, but it will be very dangerous 
for us if we do not. There is little or no solidarity 
in Mohammedan communities, but on the compara¬ 
tively few points upon which public opinion exists 
it acts with amazing promptitude and vigor. One 
matter as to which there is no disagreement is that 
it is incumbent upon every man to assist in eradi¬ 
cating these creatures. The good old Biblical cus¬ 
tom of stoning to death is the mode of lynching 
indigenous hereabouts. These modern Asiatics are 
quite capable of applying it to any one believed 
derelict against any of these inimical monsters. If 
we let one escape and the rumor of it gets about, 


AMINA 


171 


we may precipitate an outburst of racial prejudice 
difficult to cope with. Shoot, I say, without hesi¬ 
tation or mercy.” 

“I understand,” said Waldo. 

“I don’t care whether you understand or not,” 
said the consul. “I want you to act. Shoot if 
needful, and shoot straight.” And he tramped off. 

Hassan presently appeared, and Waldo drank 
from his water bottle as nearly all of its contents 
as Hassan would permit. After his departure 
Waldo’s first alertness soon gave place to mere 
endurance of the monotony of watching and the 
intensity of the heat. His discomfort became suf¬ 
fering, and what with the fury of the dry glare, 
the pangs of thirst and his bewilderment of mind, 
Waldo was moving in a waking dream by the time 
Hassan returned with two donkeys and a mule 
laden with brushwood. Behind the beasts strag¬ 
gled the guard. 

Waldo’s trance became a nightmare when the 
smoke took effect and the battle began. He was, 
however, not only not required to join in the kill¬ 
ing, but was enjoined to keep back. He did keep 
very much in the background, seeing only so much 
of the slaughter as his curiosity would not let him 
refrain from viewing. Yet he felt all a murderer 
as he gazed at the ten small carcasses laid out 
arow, and the memory of his vigil and its end, 
indeed of the whole day, though it was the day of 
his most marvelous adventure, remains to him as 
the broken recollections of a phantasmagoria. 

* * 

On the morning of his memorable peril Waldo 
had waked early. The experiences of his sea- 


172 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


voyage, the sights at Gibraltar, at Port Said, in 
the canal, at Suez, at Aden, at Muscat, and at 
Basrah had formed an altogether inadequate transi¬ 
tion from the decorous regularity of house and 
school-life in New England to the breathless won¬ 
der of the desert immensities. 

Everything seemed unreal, and yet the reality 
of its strangeness so besieged him that he could 
not feel at home in it, he could not sleep heavily 
in a tent. After composing himself to sleep, he 
lay long conscious and awakened early, as on this 
morning, just at the beginning of the false-dawn. 

The consul was fast asleep, snoring loudly. 
Waldo dressed quietly and went out; mechanically, 
without any purpose or forethought, taking his gun. 
Outside he found Hassan, seated, his gun across 
his knees, his head sunk forward, as fast asleep 
as the consul. Ali and Ibrahim had left the camp 
the day before for supplies. Waldo was the only 
waking creature about; for the guards, camped 
some little distance off, were but logs about the 
ashes of their fire. 

When he had begun camp life he had expected 
to find the consul, that combination of sportsman, 
explorer and archaeologist, a particularly easy¬ 
going guardian. He had looked forward to abso¬ 
lutely untrammeled liberty in the spacious expanse 
of the limitless wastes. The reality he had found 
exactly the reverse of his preconceptions. The 
consul’s first injunction was: 

“Never let yourself get out of sight of me or 
of Hassan unless he or I send you off with Ali 
or Ibrahim. Let nothing tempt you to roam about 
alone. Even a ramble is dangerous. You might 
lose sight of the camp before you knew it.” 


AMINA 


173 


At first Waldo acquiesced, later he protested. 
“I have a good pocket compass. I know how to 
use it. I never lost my way in the Maine woods.” 

“No Kourds in the Maine woods,” said the 
consul. 

Yet before long Waldo noticed that the few 
Kourds they encountered seemed simple-hearted, 
peaceful folk. No semblance of danger or even 
of adventure had appeared. Their armed guard 
of a dozen greasy tatterdemalions had passed their 
time in uneasy loafing. 

Likewise Waldo noticed that the consul seemed 
indifferent to the ruins they passed by or encamped 
among, that his feeling for sites and topography 
was cooler than lukewarm, that he showed no ardor 
in the pursuit of the scanty and uninteresting game. 
He had picked up enough of several dialects to 
hear repeated conversations about “them.” “Have 
you heard of any about here?” “Has one been 
killed?” “Any traces of them in this district?” 
And such queries he could make out in the various 
talks with the natives they met; as to what “they” 
were he received no enlightenment. 

Then he had questioned Hassan as to why he 
was so restricted in his movements. Hassan spoke 
some English and regaled him with tales of Afrits, 
ghouls, specters and other uncanny legendary pres¬ 
ences ; of the jinn of the waste, appearing in human 
shape, talking all languages, ever on the alert to 
ensnare infidels; of the woman whose feet turned 
the wrong way at the ankles, luring the unwary 
to a pool and there drowning her victims; of the 
malignant ghosts of dead brigands, more terrible 
than their living fellows; of the spirit in the shape 
of a wild ass, or of a gazelle, enticing its pursuers 


174 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


to the brink of a precipice and itself seeming to 
run ahead upon an expanse of sand, a mere mirage, 
dissolving as the victim passed the brink and fell 
to death; of the sprite in the semblance of a hare 
feigning a limp, or of a ground-bird feigning a 
broken wing, drawing its pursuer after it till he 
met death in an unseen pit or well-shaft. 

Ali and Ibrahim spoke no English. As far 
as Waldo could understand their long harangues, 
they told similar stories or hinted at dangers equal¬ 
ly vague and imaginary. These childish bogy-tales 
merely whetted Waldo’s craving for independence. 

Now, as he sat on a rock, longing to enjoy the 
perfect sky, the clear, early air, the wide, lonely 
landscape, along with the sense of having it to him¬ 
self, it seemed to him that the consul was merely 
innately cautious, over-cautious. There was no 
danger. He would have a fine, leisurely stroll, kill 
something perhaps, and certainly be back in camp 
before the sun grew hot. He stood up. 

Some hours later he was seated on a fallen 
coping-stone in the shadow of a ruined tomb. All 
the country they had been traversing is full of 
tombs and remains of tombs, prehistoric, Bactrian, 
old Persian, Parthian, Sassanian, or Mohamme¬ 
dan, scattered everywhere in groups or solitary. 
Vanished utterly are the faintest traces of the 
cities, towns, and villages, ephemeral houses or 
temporary huts, in which had lived the countless 
generations of mourners who had reared these 
tombs. 

The tombs, built more durably than mere dwell¬ 
ings of the living, remained. Complete or ruinous, 
or reduced to mere fragments, they were every¬ 
where. In that district they were all of one type. 


AMINA 


175 


Each was domed and below was square, its one 
door facing eastward and opening into a larger 
empty room, behind which were the mortuary 
chambers. 

In the shadow of such a tomb Waldo sat. He 
had shot nothing, had lost his way, had no idea of 
the direction of the camp, was tired, warm and 
thirsty. He had forgotten his water bottle. 

He swept his gaze over the vast, desolate pros¬ 
pect, the unvaried turquoise of the sky arched 
above the rolling desert. Far reddish hills along 
the skyline hooped in the less distant brown hil¬ 
locks which, without diversifying it, hummocked 
the yellow landscape. Sand and rocks with a lean, 
starved bush or two made up the nearer view, 
broken here and there by dazzling white or 
streaked, grayish, crumbling ruins. The sun had 
not been long above the horizon, yet the whole 
surface of the desert was quivering with heat. 

As Waldo sat viewing the outlook a woman 
came round the corner tomb. All the village 
women Waldo had seen had worn yashmaks or some 
other form of face-covering or veil. This woman 
was bareheaded and unveiled. She wore some sort 
of yellowish-brown garment which enveloped her 
from neck to ankles, showing no waist line. Her 
feet, in defiance of the blistering sands, were bare. 

At sight of Waldo she stopped and stared at 
him as he at her. He remarked the un-European 
posture of her feet, not at all turned out, but with 
the inner lines parallel. She wore no anklets, he 
observed, no bracelets, no necklace or earrings. 
Her bare arms he thought the most muscular he had 
ever seen on a human being. Her nails were point¬ 
ed and long, both on her hands and her feet. Her 


176 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


hair was black, short and tousled, yet she did not 
look wild or uncomely. Her eyes smiled and her 
lips had the effect of smiling, though they did not 
part ever so little, not showing at all the teeth 
behind them. 

“What a pity,” said Waldo aloud, “that she 
does not speak English.” 

“I do speak English,” said the woman, and 
Waldo noticed that as she spoke, her lips did not 
perceptibly open. “What does the gentleman 
want?” 

“You speak English!” Waldo exclaimed, jump¬ 
ing to his feet. “What luck! Where did you 
learn it?” 

“At the mission school,” she replied, an amused 
smile playing about the corners of her rather wide, 
unopening mouth. “What can be done for you?” 
She spoke with scarcely any foreign accent, but 
very slowly and with a sort of growl running along 
from syllable to syllable. 

“I am thirsty,” said Waldo, “and I have lost 
my way.” 

“Is the gentleman living in a brown tent, 
shaped like half a melon?” she inquired, the queer, 
rumbling note drawling from one word to the next, 
her lips barely separated. 

“Yes, that is our camp,” said Waldo. 

“I could guide the gentleman that way,” she 
droned; “but it is far, and there is no water on 
that side.” 

“I want water first,” said Waldo, “or milk.” 

“If you mean cow’s milk, we have none. But 
we have goat’s milk. There is to drink where I 
dwell,” she said, sing-songing the words. “It is 
not far. It is the other way.” 

“Show me,” said he. 


AMINA 


177 


She began to walk, Waldo, his gun under his 
arm, beside her. She trod noiselessly and fast. 
Waldo could scarcely keep up with her. As they 
walked he often fell behind and noted how her 
swathing garments clung to a lithe, shapely back, 
neat waist and firm hips. Each time he hurried 
and caught up with her, he scanned her with inter¬ 
mittent glances, puzzled that her waist, so well- 
marked at the spine, showed no particular definition 
in front; that the outline of her from neck to knees, 
perfectly shapeless under her wrappings, was with¬ 
out any waist-line or suggestion of firmness or 
undulation. Likewise he remarked the amused 
flicker in her eyes and the compressed line of her 
red, her too red, lips. 

“How long were you at the mission school?” 
he inquired. 

“Four years,” she replied. 

“Are you a Christian?” he asked. 

“The Free-folk do not submit to baptism,” she 
stated simply, but with rather more of the droning 
growl between her words. 

He felt a queer shiver as he watched the scarce¬ 
ly moved lips through which the syllables edged 
their way. 

“But you are not veiled,” he could not resist 
saying. 

“The Free-folk,” she rejoined, “are never 
veiled.” 

“Then you are not a Mohammedan?” he ven¬ 
tured. 

“The Free-folk are not Moslems.” 

“Who are the Free-folk?” he blurted out in¬ 
cautiously. 

She shot one baleful glance at him. Waldo 


178 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


remembered that he had to do with an Asiatic. He 
recalled the three permitted questions. 

“What is your name?” he inquired. 

“Amina,” she told him. 

“That is a name from the ‘Arabian Nights/ ” 
he hazarded. 

“From the foolish tales of the believers,” she 
sneered. “The Free-folk know nothing of such 
follies.” The unvarying shutness of her speaking 
lips, the drawly burr between the syllables, struck 
him all the more as her lips curled but did not 
open. 

“You utter your words in a strange way,” he 
said. 

“Your language is not mine,” she replied. 

“How is it that you learned my language at 
the mission school and are not a Christian?” 

“They teach all at the mission school,” she 
said, “and the maidens of the Free-folk are like 
the other maidens they teach, though the Free-folk 
when grown are not as town-dwellers are. There¬ 
fore they taught me as any. townbred girl, not 
knowing me for what I am.” 

“They taught you well,” he commented. 

“I have the gift of tongues,” she uttered enig¬ 
matically, with an odd note of triumph burring the 
words through her unmoving lips. 

Waldo felt a horrid shudder all over him, not 
only at her uncanny words, but also from mere 
faintness. 

“Is it far to your home?” he breathed. 

“It is there,” she said, pointing to the doorway 
of a large tomb just before them. 

The wholly open arch admitted them into a 
fairly spacious interior, cool with the abiding tem- 


AMINA 


179 


perature of thick masonry. There was no rubbish 
on the floor. Waldo, relieved to escape the blister¬ 
ing glare outside, seated himself on a block of stone 
midway between the door and the inner partition- 
wall, resting his gun-butt on the floor. For the 
moment he was blinded by the change from the 
insistent brilliance of the desert morning to the 
blurred gray light of the interior. 

When his sight cleared he looked about and 
remarked, opposite the door, the ragged hole which 
laid open the desecrated mausoleum. As his eyes 
grew accustomed to the dimness he was so startled 
that he stood up. It seemed to him that from its 
four corners the room swarmed with naked chil¬ 
dren. To his inexperienced conjecture they seemed 
about two years old, but they moved with the 
assurance of boys of eight or ten. 

“Whose are these children?” he exclaimed. 

“Mine,” she said. 

“All yours?” he protested. 

“All mine,” she replied, a curious suppressed 
boisterousness in her demeanor. 

“But there are twenty of them,” he cried. 

“You count badly in the dark,” she told him. 
“There are fewer.” 

“There certainly are a dozen,” he maintained, 
spinning round as they danced and scampered 
about. 

“The Free-people have large families,” she 
said. 

“But they are all of one age,” Waldo exclaimed, 
his tongue dry against the roof of his mouth. 

She laughed, an unpleasant, mocking laugh, 
clapping her hands. She was between him and the 
doorway, and as most of the light came from it he 
could not see her lips. 


180 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“Is not that like a man! No woman would 
have made that mistake.” 

Waldo was confuted and sat down again. The 
children circulated around him, chattering, laugh¬ 
ing, giggling, snickering, making noises indicative 
of glee. 

“Please get me something cool to drink,” said 
Waldo, and his tongue was not only' dry but big 
in his mouth. 

“We shall have to drink shortly,” she said, “but 
it will be warm.” 

Waldo began to feel uneasy. The children 
pranced around him, jabbering strange, guttural 
noises, licking their lips, pointing at him, their 
eyes fixed on him, with now and then a glance at 
their mother. 

“Where is the water?” 

The woman stood silent, her arms hanging at 
her sides, and it seemed to Waldo she was shorter 
than she had been. 

“Where is the water?” he repeated. 

“Patience, patience,” she growled, and came a 
step nearer to him. 

The sunlight struck upon her back and made 
a sort of halo about her hips. She seemed still 
shorter than before. There was a something fur¬ 
tive in her bearing, and the little ones sniggered 
evilly. 

At that instant two rifle shots rang out almost 
as one. The woman fell face downward on the 
floor. The babies shrieked in a shrill chorus. Then 
she leapt up from all fours with an explosive sud¬ 
denness, staggered in a hurled, lurching rush 
toward the hole in the wall, and, with a frightful 
yell, threw up her arms and whirled backward to 


AMINA 


181 


the ground, doubled and contorted like a dying 
fish, stiffened, shuddered and was still. Waldo, 
his horrified eyes fixed on her face, even in his 
amazement noted that her lips did not open. 

The children, squealing faint cries of dismay, 
scrambled through the hole in the inner wall, van¬ 
ishing into the inky void beyond. The last had 
hardly gone when the consul appeared in the door¬ 
way, his smoking gun in his hand. 

“Not a second too soon, my boy,” he ejaculated. 
“She was just going to spring.” 

He cocked his gun and prodded the body with 
the muzzle. 

“Good and dead,” he commented. “What luck! 
Generally it takes three or four bullets to finish 
one. I’ve known one with two bullets through her 
lungs to kill a man.” 

“Did you murder this woman ?” Waldo demand¬ 
ed fiercely. 

“Murder?” the consul snorted. “Murder! 
Look at that.” 

He knelt down and pulled open the full, close 
lips, disclosing not human teeth, but small incisors, 
cusped grinders, wide-spaced, and long, keen, over¬ 
lapping canines, like those of a greyhound: a fierce, 
deadly, carnivorous dentition, menacing and com¬ 
bative. 

Waldo felt a qualm, yet the face and form still 
swayed his horrified sympathy for their human¬ 
ness. 

“Do you shoot women because they have long 
teeth?” Waldo insisted, revolted at the horrid death 
he had watched. 

“You are hard to convince,” said the consul 
sternly. “Do you call that a woman?” 


182 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


He stripped the clothing from the carcass. 

Waldo sickened all over. What he saw was 
not the front of a woman, but the body of a female 
animal, old and flaccid—mother of a pack. 

“What kind of a creature is it?” he asked 
faintly. 

“A Ghoul, my boy,” the consul answered sol¬ 
emnly, almost in a whisper. 

“I thought they did not exist,” Waldo babbled. 
“I thought they were mythical; I thought there 
were none.” 

“I can very well believe that there are none 
in Rhode Island,” the consul said gravely. “This 
is in Persia, and Persia is in Asia.” 

Edward Lucas White. 


THE SILVER RING 

Calderon stopped abruptly in the middle of 
that long road across the moor. Something had 
caught his eye as he walked—the slightest possible 
glitter at the side of the road, where the heavy 
sunlight was making even the stones throw tiny, 
dense shadows. He went back a step, intent upon 
discovering what it was that had disturbed his 
casual glance. There, half raised by a small mound 
of hardened dust, was a ring, a plain silver ring, 
the sight of which struck him as a dagger might 
have done. As he picked it gently from the road¬ 
way, and dusted it with his handkerchief, his 
fingers trembled. It was his wife’s ring. He had 
given it to her before their marriage, a memento 
of an exquisitely happy day. All the time they had 
been together she had worn it constantly: there had 
never been a time when she had not borne it upon 
her finger. The ring was full of memories for him 
—of memories that were painful now in their hap¬ 
piness because they belonged to a broken time. 
And these memories pressed upon his heart, stab¬ 
bing him, as he stood thoughtfully in the roadway 
among the purple heather, gazing at the ring. His 
face had grown quite gray and hard, and his eves 
were troubled. 

For a moment he could do nothing but gaze at 
the ring, busy with his urgent thoughts. Fie could 
not yet wonder how the ring had come there, upon 


184 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


this lonely road from dale to dale. Behind him 
the road was white, narrowing through the heather, 
unshadowed by any tree. To right and left of 
him the moor stretched in purple masses until it 
darkened at the sky line. In front, the road began 
already to decline for the steep descent into Wens- 
leydale. The grass could be seen ahead of him; 
and beyond it, far in the burning mist of the late 
afternoon, he saw gleaming, like quicksilver, a 
sheet of water. The wind came at that great height 
in powerful gusts, freshening the air, pressing 
warmly against his face and hands as pleasantly as 
water presses against the swimmer. No other per¬ 
son was in sight upon the moor: he was alone, with 
Evelyn’s ring in his hand, and poignant memories 
assailing him. 

Calderon’s love for his wife had been as in¬ 
tense and as true as any love could be. Her love 
for him, more capricious, more ardent, had been 
as great. Yet in the fifth year of their marriage, 
such was the conflict of two strong personalities, 
they had quarreled vehemently, and had parted. 
Both had independent means, and both had many 
activities. Calderon had been working very hard 
for two years since the quarrel, and they had not 
met. The two or three letters exchanged early in 
their estrangement had never suggested a con¬ 
tinued correspondence; and although he knew that 
his wife had been living in the eastern counties, 
Calderon had now no idea at all of her where¬ 
abouts. How strange that he should find upon this 
lonely road that precious ring! Engraved within 
it he read: “Evelyn : Maurice”—the inscription she 
had desired. Calderon sighed, slipping the ring 
into his pocket, and thoughtfully continuing upon 


THE SILVER RING 


185 


his way. Was Evelyn before him, or behind him? 
Who could tell? They had never been together to 
Yorkshire. He must go as a blind man. 

Then the question came to him: if they met, 
what had he to say to her? He knew no more of 
his journey down into Wensleydale, for the pas¬ 
sionate unreasonings that overwhelmed him. 

And then, when he was arrived in the little vil¬ 
lage to which the road over the moor leads, he 
again hesitated. So much depended upon his ac¬ 
tion. He must find Evelyn this evening, for his 
return to London was urgent. Already the shadows 
were growing long, and the evening was heavy. 
Which way should he go? Upon his choice might 
depend the whole course of his future life. For a 
few moments he halted, irresolute. . Then he went 
slowly forward to the first inn he saw, his fingers 
playing in his waistcoat pocket with the little ring 
that had suddenly plunged him into the past. He 
thought it certain that the loss of it was accidental. 
She would not have kept the ring for so long, and 
she could not have brought it with her to York¬ 
shire, if she had intended to throw it away for¬ 
ever. And yet how came it upon the moorland 
road? 

Calderon stopped outside the comfortable inn. 
It attracted him; but, as though he had put some 
kind of reliance upon telepathy, he felt sure that 
Evelyn was not there. Should he enter, make in¬ 
quiry? No; he knew she was not there. His steps 
led him forward. As if he were trying to follow 
some invisible thread, he went onward, pausing no 
more, through the village, over to the other side 
of the dale, marveling at the heavy outline of 
Mount Caburn, silhouetted against the sky. He 


186 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


found himself upon a good road, with hedges on 
both sides. It was an adventure. He was follow¬ 
ing the bidding of his instinct. He did not really 
believe in it, Calderon told himself; it was too 
silly. There would be a disappointment, a sense 
of having been “sold”; and the morning would find 
him unsatisfied, with his single opportunity gone. 
Yet even while his thoughts poured doubt upon 
his action he was pursuing his way at a regular 
pace. How curious it was! It was as though there 
were two Calderons—one brain, the other over¬ 
mastering instinct. 

“You’ll see,” he warned himself. “Nothing 
will happen. You’ll have an uncomfortable night, 
and a trudge back in the morning. It’s no good. 
No good!” 

Yet he continued upon his way beside the silent 
hedges, his knapsack upon his shoulder, his arms 
swinging, and the silver ring hidden in his waist¬ 
coat pocket. 

It was quite dark when he reached Bainbridge. 
He knew well the aspect of the open common, 
because he had passed through it a dozen years 
before, and the place is unforgettable. There was 
a large green, he remembered, and the houses 
hedged the green, as they did at East Witton. 
He smiled at the memory and at the comparison. 
Yorkshire held such variety of scene, from east to 
west, that he could pick from among old associa¬ 
tions a pleasant thought of every part of it. And 
here at Bainbridge he knew there was an old inn, 
quiet and spacious, where he might find Evelyn. 
She was not one to seek the smaller inns such as 
he would himself have chosen: she would endure 
the discomforts of loquacious companionship rather 


THE SILVER RING 


187 


than those of primitive bathing arrangements. Had 
it not, then, been instinct which had led him here? 
Had it perhaps been a subconscious guessing at 
her inclinations? Calderon could not discuss that 
now. He was here; it was too late to go farther; 
he must endure whatever disappointment might be 
in store for him. 

A bedroom was available; he was supplied with 
hot water, and he groomed himself as well as his 
small store of belongings allowed. Whimsically he 
foresaw a number of women in semi-evening dress, 
one or two men in suitably dark clothes, himself 
the only palpable “tourist.” There would be a 
solitary meal, as dinner time was past; and he 
would then seek among the company the owner of 
the silver ring. Calderon found himself laughing 
rather excitedly, even trembling slightly. Well, 
he would see what happened. He ventured down 
the stairs, nervously grinning at the thought that 
Evelyn might appear from any one of the doors 
along that silent passage. 

When he reached the foot of the stairs he went 
instinctively to the door, to watch the two or three 
faint, sudden lights that started across the green 
out of a general blackness. It was a very dark 
night; clouds had come swiftly from the southwest, 
and the sky was entirely hidden. There was a 
wind, and he thought that as soon as it dropped 
the rain might begin to patter. 

And then, while he was thus prophesying the 
weather, Calderon was held to the spot by a new 
sensation. Within, from some room which he had 
not entered, came an unknown voice, singing. The 
voice was sweet, but he did not listen; only the air 
that was sung made him follow the voice, words 


. 188 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


forming in his mind, as though he were himself 
singing: 

“The little silver ring that once you gave to me 
Keeps in its narrow band every promise of 
ours. ...” 

Surely he was dreaming! He could not move. 
The clouds hurried; the darkness enwrapped him. 
He could not smile at a coincidence, because he 
could not believe that the song was really being 
sung. It was too much for him to take in. If 
Evelyn were there, what could she be feeling, 
thinking? Calderon was a very honest man, and 
was considered generally a very cool, unsentimental 
one; but he was easily moved by the one love of his 
life. Evelyn was the only woman for him; they 
were parted; he had found a ring which held just 
such associations, “memories of the past,” as the 
song pictured. The^ ring was more than a ring. 
It was not merely an ornament; it was the material 
sign of their love. Calderon was deeply stirred. 

Even as he stood there, not daring to move, he 
felt that he was not alone. Another figure, a 
woman’s, stood in the doorway. He could see her 
light dress, the whiteness of her neck; and he found 
himself breathless, suffocated by the sudden 
denouement to his dream. 

“Evelyn!” he whispered, moving at last. 

There was a quick recoil. For a moment it 
seemed to Calderon that everything was lost, and 
that he was alone. Then the woman in the doorway 
stood quite still, breathing quickly, half hidden 
from him by the doorpost, her face wholly invisible 
in the murk of the night. 

“I didn’t see anybody,” she said unsteadily. 


THE SILVER RING 


189 


“Who are you?” It seemed an unfamiliar voice, 
rather strangled and more than a little scared. 

“Ah! You’re not Evelyn!” Calderon cried. 
Still he could not see her: only the whiteness glim¬ 
mered before him. “I’m— My name’s Calderon. 
I beg your pardon. I thought it was my wife.” 

“Calderon!” said the voice; and it seemed to 
him that it was suddenly filled with a new warmth, 
as of gayety. Then: “How funny!” said the un¬ 
known. He seemed to see her head quickly lowered 
and averted. Was she smiling? Who could have 
told, in that foglike darkness? It was as much as 
he could do to see that she was still before him. 
But funny? What did that mean? 

“Funny?” he exclaimed eagerly. “Is—” He 
pulled himself up. Here was a complication! If 
he asked any question, might he not make a new 
difficulty? He could not ask whether Evelyn was 
here. He could guess how quickly a story would 
run through a mischievous party of tourists, unre¬ 
strained by any real understanding of the situa¬ 
tion, and bent upon canvassing among themselves, 
merely to beguile gaps in a mealtime conversation, 
the history of an unhappy marriage. He could not 
expose Evelyn to such a company. So he went no 
further with his speech. 

“Perhaps you’ve heard—” said the voice. “Per¬ 
haps you’ve heard of Alice Bradshaw.” She was 
quite recovered from her shock, and was ready, it 
appeared to Calderon, to hold him flirtatiously in 
the doorway. “I’ve known Evelyn for some time 
—two years.” 

“I’ve got an idea—” hesitated Calderon, rack¬ 
ing his brains and lying. It was getting worse arid 
worse! How could he go on without showing how 


190 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


little he knew about Evelyn’s recent movements? 
He frowned^ and smiled nervously on the darkness. 
He was rather glad of the darkness. “I—it’s pos¬ 
sible—•” 

“But not probable!” said the laughing voice. 
“Don’t pretend to remember me, if you don’t!” 

“Well, I don’t!” admitted Calderon. “And 
that’s quite true.” 

“Honest man!” said the voice. Something made 
him move forward quickly. The figure disap¬ 
peared. Calderon; putting his hand instinctively 
forward to stop her, allowed the little ring to jerk 
from it. 

“Oh!” he cried. “Here; I say!” 

He was down upon his knees, fumbling on the 
ground. A match flickered on his fingers. He 
looked quickly up, hoping to see the unknown’s 
face; but the match was blown out instantly by 
the strong wind that was pressing and fluttering 
about him as he knelt. 

“What have you dropped?” asked the voice. 
The mysterious one had reappeared in the doorway. 

“A ring!” Calderon said sharply. 

“A ring!” There was sympathy in the voice. 
“What a pity! Let me look.” 

He struck another match, and groped about. It 
was unavailing. The match went out, and beyond 
a sudden glimpse of the trodden earth he had seen 
nothing. 

“It’s really your fault,” Calderon said to the 
unknown, “for starting away.” 

“Was it on your finger?” 

“No. It isn’t mine. It’s a silver ring.” 

“A silver—•” There was a moment’s startled 
pause. “Did you hear the song just now?” 


THE SILVER RING 


191 


“Yes—Ah!” With the third match he had de¬ 
tected the ring. “Good!” 

“Is it your ring?” asked the voice. “I mean 
. . . Evelyn . . . wears one, doesn’t she?” 

“Does she?” Calderon asked drily. “She did.” 

“Oh, she—” 

“I found it on the moor. This is hers. I 
brought it—” 

Calderon checked himself again. He was rub¬ 
bing the ring with his handkerchief, in case it had 
been dirtied. 

“How did you know we were here?” said the 
voice, in a tone of piquant curiosity. 

“Then—!” cried Calderon, feeling his face get 
very hot. He could have shouted at this confirma¬ 
tion of his most rosy hopes. It was with a terrible 
effort that he restrained himself. “Oh,” he said 
vaguely, “one does know.” He heard a real laugh 
this time, but smothered, as though the unknown 
were holding a handkerchief to her mouth. 

“Evidently,” she said. “But how does one 
know?” 

“How do you know that Evelyn didn’t tell 
me?” he parried. He felt it was a master stroke. 
“You don’t seem to have exhausted the possibili¬ 
ties.” 

“No, of course. She might have,” admitted the 
mysterious voice. There was the tiniest silence. 
“But I don’t think she did. Of course, I don’t 
know.” 

“No, of course,” Calderon politely agreed. “Is 
she quite well?” 

“Oh!” cried the voice, shaking with amusement. 
“Don’t you know that? Hasn’t she told you that? 
It’s too bad to keep it from you!” 


192 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“What!” Calderon moved nearer. “She’s not 
ill!” 

“No. I meant that she was well.” 

“She tells me very little about herself—very 
little/’ he explained ingeniously. “You’ll have 
noticed that she doesn’t think of herself at all.” 

A dryness came into the tone of his companion. 

“You still idealize her, then?” Calderon heard. 

“Yes. You see . . . it’s an odd thing/’ he 
went on, “and one doesn’t talk about it. But you 
see I’m in love with her.” 

There was another pause. A significant pause. 

“I think you’re very forgiving/’ at last said a 
muffled voice. “I—” 

“What I should like to know/’ Calderon an¬ 
swered, as if weighing his words, “is whether she’s 
also very forgiving.” 

“Oh,” said the voice, now very low. “You must 
ask her that.” 

“I do,” Calderon ventured. “Are you?” 

“Oh, Maurice, you’re crushing me!” cried the 
unknown suddenly. “There . . . Alice has fin¬ 
ished singing. She’ll be coming. . . . Give me my 
ring. . . . Oh, my dear; of course I do!” 

The ring was restored, to rest in its old position 
until memory’s course should be run. 

Frank Swinnerton. 


THE SURGEON 

“You fellows outside the medical profession 
have absolutely no conception of the terrors con¬ 
fronting a prominent physician and of the traps 
and snares and pitfalls laid for him at every turn.” 

The great surgeon lolled back in his chair, and, 
raising a glass of champagne in those delicately 
formed, yet steel-strong fingers that had resolved 
the intricacies of life and death for many a suf¬ 
ferer, he gazed thoughtfully at the whirling tor¬ 
rent of tiny bubbles and then touched it lightly to 
his lips. It was one of those rare times when the 
wheel of Fate had brought together a group of 
men united by the strongest bond that friendship 
can tie, the bond of the college life and love of 
auld lang syne. It was heart to heart here, even 
as it had been with us a quarter century before, 
ere we had parted to go our several ways in the 
broad fields of life. 

Of us all, Harrington had become the one pre¬ 
eminently famous, and his remark came in reply 
to a bit of the congratulatory flattery that only the 
intimacy of the college chum dare venture with 
impunity. 

“What do you mean, Harrington?” asked Dal- 
bey, the banker. “Perplexities of diagnosis, the 
nervous strain of responsibility, and the like?” 

“I think I can say without conceit,” replied the 
surgeon, “that diagnosis has become with me almost 


194 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


an intuition. In that field I have absolute confi¬ 
dence in myself. As for nerves, I haven’t any. I 
can cut within the fiftieth of an inch of certain 
death as coolly as you pare your nail. No; I mean 
deliberate wickedness, malice, blackmail. We are 
never free from this danger. Let me give you an 
instance, if it won’t bore you.” 

There was a chorus of calls, “Go on, go on,” 
and Jenkins cried, “Never heard it!” for which 
he was promptly squelched. 

* * 

It was just two years ago (Harrington began), 
and my five gray hairs date from that night. I 
was sitting in my office just after my evening office 
hour had ended, and I was pretty well tired out. 
The bell rang furiously, and I heard the attendant 
saying that my hour was over and that I could see 
no one. There was some very vigorous insistence, 
and I caught the words “urgent,” “imperative,” 
and a few more equally significant, so I called to 
the man that I would see the belated visitor. He 
entered quickly. He was evidently a man of wealth 
and breeding, and as evidently laboring under great 
excitement. 

“Is this Dr. Harrington?” he asked as he 
seated himself close by my desk. 

“It is,” I answered. 

“Dr. James Y. Harrington?” 

“Yes.” 

In the next second I found myself looking into 
the muzzle of a revolver. They say that when a 
man is in imminent danger, the mental strain is 
relieved automatically by trivialities of thought; 
and, do you know, the first thing that flamed 


THE SURGEON 


195 


through my head was, “How many turns does the 
rifling take in a barrel of that length?” 

“I have come to kill you,” said my visitor in a 
tone as cold as camphor ice, yet with a dignified 
courtesy I could not but admire. Was I face to 
face with a crank? This question I decided in the 
negative, and the situation became so much the 
more—piquant, shall I say? Well, I can say it 
now, at least. Perspective adds piquancy, very 
often. 

“Sir,” I said as quietly as most men could when 
a very earnest gentleman has the drop on them, 
“sir, there is certainly some mistake here.” 

It may have been an inane remark; but at least 
he didn’t pull the trigger, and that gained time. 

“There is none, I am equally certain,” he re¬ 
plied. 

“You have me at a decided disadvantage,” I 
continued, “and as any movement of attack or 
alarm on my part would precipitate fatalities, may 
I request that before you kill me, you at least tell 
me why you propose to do so. I make this request 
because, as a physician, I can see that you are 
perfectly sane and not the crank I at first thought 
you.” 

I was regaining my nerve, you see; if there is 
one thing in this world to give a man nerve and 
coolness, it’s to put it right up to him to avoid the 
next one. At any rate, the fairness of my request 
must have appealed to my visitor, for he said, 
“Certainly I will tell you, doctor. That is only 
just. I kill you because you performed a critical 
operation on my wife, and she is dying.” 

“This is all a fearful error,” I exclaimed eager¬ 
ly. “I do not even know you, have never seen you 


196 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


nor your wife, much less operated upon her. Sur¬ 
geons of my standing in the profession—I say this 
advisedly, sir—usually know whom they treat.” 

“Usually they do, I grant you,” he assented, 
but he emphasized the wrong word quite unpleas¬ 
antly. “This has been an exception,” he added. 

“Why do you believe it was I who operated?” 
I urged. 

“My wife said so; that is sufficient for me.” 

“She must surely have made the charge in de¬ 
lirium,” I said. 

“She is not delirious, nor has she been.” 

“Where was the operation performed?” 

“She refuses to tell me.” 

I thought very hard for a minute. What kind 
of a predicament was this? I then said to him, 
“This is a serious and vital matter, sir, for both 
of us. Any mistake could not fail to have momen¬ 
tous consequences. Suppose you take me to con¬ 
front your wife. It is probably a case of mistaken 
identity, and when she sees me, she will most cer¬ 
tainly be able readily to rectify this awful blunder. 
And so sure am I of the result that I pledge you 
my word to accompany you without violence or 
outcry.” 

After a moment’s reflection he said, “I accept 
your proposition.” 

His carriage was waiting at the door. Evi¬ 
dently he had been desperate when he came, and 
fully prepared to face the consequences of his des¬ 
peration. We drove together to his home. 

In my complete certainty of my position I 
feasted my eyes on the luxurious furnishings, the 
costly rugs—I’m a lover of rugs, you know, and 
a bit of a connoisseur—and the exquisite bric-a- 


THE SURGEON 


197 


brae and paintings. Moreover, I now knew with 
whom I was dealing, though that fact I concealed. 

We went up to the sickroom. A beautiful 
woman, desperately ill and pale as death itself, 
lay motionless upon the pillows. As we softly 
entered the room, she turned her eyes toward us, 
too weak to move her head. 

The eyes were dull and listless, but when their 
glance fell on me, they literally flashed fire and a 
hard, determined look came into them. 

“Dear,” said her husband, bending tenderly 
down to her, “who did you say performed that 
operation?” 

“Dr. Harrington,” she whispered. 

“I have brought him here. Is that the person 
who operated?” 

“Yes.” 

My heart just at that moment went as cold as 
a snowball. I saw myself ruined, broken on the 
wheel of Fate. The death phase of the situation 
didn’t matter. Worst of all, I now saw the motive. 
She was shielding some bungler, near, or more 
probably dear, to her—I was the victim selected 
by mere horrible chance. 

I crossed softly to the bed. “Madam,” I said 
to her as gently as my tumult of feeling would 
permit, “I implore you to tell the truth. Did I 
perform this operation?” 

With absolute self-possession she whispered, 
“Doctor, you did.” 

I was helpless; it was a fine illustration of the 
terrible power of the lie as a weapon against right 
and honor. 

“I assure you, before God,” I declared, turning 
to the husband, “that I was not the operating sur- 


198 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


geon in this case. You know, possibly, my reputa¬ 
tion for professional skill. Will you then permit 
me to take your wife’s temperature and to make a 
very brief examination with a view to determining 
the probable effect of her condition upon her 
rational faculties?” 

To my delight, he consented. With careful 
formality I prepared a thermometer, taking and 
noting the temperature both at mouth and armpit. 
The woman exhibited none of the repulsion she 
ought to have shown, by all principles of psychol¬ 
ogy, to being examined by the author of her mis¬ 
fortune. 

I then seated myself by the bed and felt the 
pulse. Taking my watch and detaching it from the 
chain, I placed it on the white cover of the bed 
beside her, where she could not fail to hear the 
ticking. I lifted her hands and applied my finger 
tips lightly to the arterial beat at the wrist. I 
looked her steadily in the eyes, and apparently 
gave the most minute attention to the really faint 
beating of her pulse. 

“Madam,” I said after a long wait, “it is my 
solemn and painful duty to inform you that you 
have but fifteen minutes to live. My whole pro¬ 
fessional life is at stake here. Ruin, disgrace, and 
even death stare me in the face as a result of what 
you may say. But I do not urge this upon you. 
I urge you merely for God’s sake to tell the truth.” 

“Doctor, you know you did it,” she whispered 
wearily. 

I had expected that. My bit of work in ex¬ 
perimental psychology was just beginning. I kept 
perfectly silent, my fingers still resting upon the 
patient’s wrist. The tomb itself is not more still 


THE SURGEON 


199 


nor more solemn than was that room. I let full 
five minutes pass without word or movement. 

Do you know how long five minutes can be? 
Did you ever try a silent wait of five little min¬ 
utes, even though life and death were not in the 
balance? Try to guess at five minutes; and if you 
are not skilled in counting seconds, you will call 
time in two. Five minutes can be an eternity. 
They were so then. 

“Madam,” I said again, “you have but ten 
minutes to live. I implore you to right the great 
wrong you have done.” 

Why that man did not throw me out of the 
room I will never know. He seemed fascinated 
by the fearful experiment. 

Again she calmly murmured, “Doctor, it was 
you.” 

I acknowledge that then the room turned black; 
but I was myself in an instant. I resumed my 
solemn death watch. This time I deliberately al¬ 
lowed eight minutes to add themselves to the 
eternal past. Then I knew I was playing my 
last card. 

“Madam,” I said as solemnly and impressively 
as I could speak the words, “in two minutes you 
will be before your God. Are you willing that your 
soul should face its Maker with the black stain 
upon it of the dreadful lie you have told? For 
your own immortal soul’s sake, I implore you to 
tell the truth.” 

A feeble gesture called her husband to her 
side. I rose and retired across the room. He bent 
over her, shaken by great sobs. She drew him 
down to her, kissed him and whispered, “It was 
not he.” 


200 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


I almost fell. The revulsion of feeling was too 
great. Mastering myself by a supreme effort, I 
stood to hear the colloquy to the end. 

“Who was it?” he asked. 

She told him. 

“You swear to this?” 

“With my dying breath.” 

He turned to me with a face of ashen paleness. 
“Doctor,” he gasped, “pardon.” 

I snapped shut the case of my watch. 

“Madam,” I said, “you will recover,” and left 
the room and house unmolested. 

* * 

No one spoke for a moment. Then Carvill 
ejaculated under his breath, “My God!” 

B. W. Mitchell, 


THE ’DOPTERS 

“Lemmy—oo-hoo—Lemmy—■” 

Lemmy stopped short in his game of jack- 
stones, and looked fearfully over his shoulder. All 
about him were the rest of the children, uncon¬ 
cerned, playing none the quieter for the reposeful 
afternoon shadow of the gray cloisterlike walls. 
At the edge of the yard where the grass was worn 
off most he saw the “biggest boys,” now suspending 
their game of ball to call to him. In the general 
cry he recognized the leading, raucous voice of 
Gus Chapman. Lemmy did not answer. He turned 
his back and tried to fling his jackstones indif¬ 
ferently. Out of the corner of his eye he could 
see Gus approaching. 

“The ’Dopters, Lemmy—the ’Dopters are 
coming!” Gus warned him. 

In an instant Lemmy was on his feet. Panic- 
stricken, he fled, leaving his jackstones upon the 
ground. He put his hands over his ears to shut 
out the hooting, derisive cries of the boys who did 
not understand his fear of the ’Dopters—that horde 
of individuals who lurked about the Home, a con¬ 
stant menace to his happiness. They looked harm¬ 
less enough, to be sure, in their varied disguises. 
Some came as jolly, oldish ladies with much candy 
and sometimes fat bunches of raisins in their pock¬ 
ets. Others looked for all the world like hearty 
farmers who might raise apples, both red and yel- 


202 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


low—a very deceptive sort, these farmers, who 
laughed a great deal and poked the boys’ muscles 
and pinched the girls’ cheeks. Most to be feared 
were the ’Dopters in black who hung round more 
than any of the rest. They brought toys hardly 
worn at all, but they never seemed to want to let 
them go at the last minute. They made a show of 
crying over Gracie Peeler and Nannie Bagget, who 
had curls and knew how to do a curtsey. The 
’Dopters in black always made off with some one. 

Despite the endless variety, it was not hard to 
tell a ’Dopter if you saw him in time. There was 
something about them. Most of the children rec¬ 
ognized them instinctively. Gus was particularly 
expert at picking out the ’Dopters from the casual 
visitors at the Home. Watching for them never 
interfered with his play in the least. He always 
saw first. Lemmy had learned to trust Gus’s sig¬ 
nals of danger, and although he was overwhelmed 
by the accompanying teasing, he felt very grate¬ 
ful. Gus was his savior—his methods were not to 
be criticized. Times innumerable Gus had saved 
him from being adopted. 

Who knew what it meant—being adopted? 
Lemmy could not understand why most of the chil¬ 
dren thought that it was something nice. None 
of them seemed to realize that there was any reason 
to be afraid. They were always talking about 
Tommie Graham, who had been borne off by the 
’Dopters. His friends at the Home had not seen 
him since his disappearance, but stories had started 
somehow about Tommie’s having a dog with a 
schooner back and a train of cars which whizzed 
around when he pressed a button. It was also said 
that there was another button which Tommie could 


THE ’DOPTERS 


203 


press and some one would come to take him for a 
ride in a sailboat. But all this was mere hearsay. 
There was no telling what had really befallen 
Tommie, all because he was foolish enough to sing 
in the hearing of the ’Dopters his song about three 
frogs that sat on a lily pad. 

Lemmy was certain that when a ’Dopter threw 
off his disguise he was a dragon of the very worst 
kind. It was Simple Simon to believe when they 
talked about this and that you could have if you 
would only come along. Lemmy knew, for once 
from behind the office door he had heard them talk¬ 
ing to Miss Boyder, who wore the white of author¬ 
ity. Their remarks about “parental history” and 
“hereditary instincts” and “psychological effects of 
environment” had betrayed them. Lemmy remem¬ 
bered how ominous these things had sounded mixed 
with whoop and halloo from the playground. And 
the queer feeling which had shivered through him! 
The sensation from eating a mouthful of green 
gooseberries was nothing in comparison. 

How could the other children believe that likely 
as not those words meant something nice? Lemmy 
knew better. After he had overheard that secret 
conference with Miss Boyder, he thought that he 
understood the ’Dopters pretty well. Theirs was a 
sticky-fly-paper method; there was no end to the 
ways they had of fooling you. They had named 
him “among the least promising”—this, Lemmy 
gathered, on account of his skinny legs, the result 
of something “subnormal”; and because of his habit 
of going off alone into corners, termed “sulkiness 
and uncompanionability”; his big ears had some¬ 
thing to do with it too. One tall lady had said that 
they were “not exactly Grecian.” Altogether he 


204 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


was “undesirable.” This classification even Gus 
took to be aboveboard. 

“They don’t wantcha, Lemmy,” Gus repeatedly 
assured him. “Yuh needn’t be so scarey.” 

But Gus didn’t fathom the duplicity of the 
’Dopters—they hatched up all sorts of schemes to 
make you feel easy and then got you unawares. 
Likely as not they knew all the time that he was 
the littlest boy in the Home who could hang by his 
heels, and that he could hold his breath longer than 
Gus—and; though it was a secret, that he had a pet 
toad named Nippy in the broken wall where it Was 
green and wet. They seemed to know everything 
—the ’Dopters. 

The thought of these things made Lemmy’s 
heels fly faster. He whisked behind the spirea 
bushes and drew from underneath the wide- 
spreading branches a short ladder which he had 
constructed laboriously from the odds and ends of 
dry-goods boxes. He set up the rickety support 
and climbed nimbly to the top of the high, broad 
wall, where the low elm trees hid him from view. 
He drew the ladder up carefully after him, and 
with a breath of relief stretched himself at full 
length, safe from the ’Dopters for a little while at 
least. It was comfort to have such a place where 
he could hide, unless the ’Dopters came at meal¬ 
time, when no one could escape. He would not 
soon forget the time when Lucy Simmons was 
dragged away just as she had started to eat her 
piece of blackberry pie. She never came back to 
finish it. One could never be really safe from the 
’Dopters. There was no let-up to looking out for 
them. And there would always be ’Dopters as 
long as the Outside remained. Lemmy was afraid 


THE ’DOPTERS 


205 


of the Outside. He liked to look at it from the top 
of the wall; it appeared fascinatingly full of mys¬ 
tery, but it always terrified him. There was no 
place really safe, even bed. Lemmy sighed and 
squinted through the fluttering leaves at a bit of 
cloud. After a while it would be getting pink, as 
it did when supper time came-—baked potatoes and 
milk, and maybe jam from the long, dark shelves 
in the vegetable cellar. Lemmy’s thoughts flew to 
the empty barrel in which he intended to hide when 
winter came on and the elm leaves fell to the 
ground. It would be hard to get by Mrs. O’Gor¬ 
man, who was always puttering about the basement 
with a pad and pencil, muttering unintelligible 
things under her breath. Perhaps the linen closet 
would be safer, only they might come when Gerda 
and Lou were putting away the ironed things. 

Lemmy’s speculations were interrupted by a 
deep “Ho-ho-hum” from the other side of the wall. 
The exclamation had a luxurious sound, as if some 
one was treating himself to a good rest. Lemmy 
peered over the edge of the wall, and gave a little 
gasp. 

There on the bench beneath was some one who 
had undoubtedly stepped out of book covers. He 
was a big man, a very big man, with a brown skin 
lined with fine wrinkles which told all sorts of 
things without his saying a word. His hair was 
gray, but he looked somehow very young and up to 
anything lively. His old trousers were turned up, 
and his coat with its big buttons, flung wide apart, 
disclosed a faded blouse. From his belt dangled a 
heavy chain, and from his pocket the end of a 
jolly colored handkerchief. His cap had the look 
of a cap which had been through things. Slowly 


206 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


and comfortably he stretched his long arms, and as 
his sleeve slipped back Lemmy caught sight of a 
tattooed bird, green and blue and red, above his 
left wrist. And then he flung his head back, and 
his blue eyes twinkled up at Lemmy without a sign 
of surprise. 

“A-hoy, mate,” he called companionably. 

“A-hoy, Cap’n,” returned Lemmy, laughing in 
delight. 

“How’s the wind?” 

“Southwest,” Lemmy gave back promptly. 
“And that’s what stirs the water up all purply 
pink— 

“Right-o—” The Cap’n slapped his knee in 
approval. 

“Wind that makes the lake look like that must 
come from a place where a fellah could find out 
about magic,” Lemmy speculated. 

“Magic? You want to find out about magic, 
young man?” The Cap’n sat up with a great show 
of interest. His eyes were very friendly. 

“Oh, more’n anything else in the world,” Lem¬ 
my burst out impulsively. “I want to find out how 
to make a rosebush pop out of a stovepipe hat and 
how to pull fuzzy little chickens out of people’s 
sleeves and how to pick gold pieces out of the air 
the way I saw a man do once to make the lumber¬ 
men laugh at Camp Cusson—that’s where I lived 
when my Daddy used to run the lumber camp until 
he died, and so did my mother of epidemick—” 
Lemmy caught his breath. “I want to learn how 
to do magic so I can have fun and make people 
laugh.” 

The Cap’n chuckled and spread his jolly col¬ 
ored handkerchief across his knees. From an old, 


THE ’DOPTERS 


207 


brown wallet he took a coin which he twirled mer¬ 
rily in his nimble fingers. 

“Have a look at this/’ he said, reaching up to 
put the coin into Lemmy’s hand. 

Lemmy looked curiously at the strange piece 
of money which lay in his palm. It was not at all 
like the dimes and nickels which the ’Dopters often 
slid into a fellow’s pocket. It was shiny and yel¬ 
low, the color of the pin which always fastened 
Miss Boyder’s collar. It was gold! And there 
were figures of dragons upon it guarding words 
which Lemmy could not read at all, though they 
were very short. 

“Heave it into the hanker,” directed the Cap’n. 

Plump into the jolly colored handkerchief Lem¬ 
my dropped the coin. Wide-eyed, he watched the 
Cap’n tie the handkerchief into a knot and twist it 
smartly to make certain that it was secure. With 
a fine flourish he flung it high into the air, caught 
it again deftly and untied the tight knot. Smiling 
broadly, he spread the handkerchief out upon his 
knees again. Lemmy stared unbelievingly—the 
gold coin had vanished and in its place lay a silver 
dollar. He blinked at the air in a daze. Very 
quickly the Cap’n retied his handkerchief and 
tossed it up once more. When he opened it again, 
wonder of winders, there was the gold coin! 

A cry of discovery burst from Lemmy’s throat. 

“You’re a Majishun!” 

The Cap’n beamed and drew from his pocket, 
one, two, three oranges. He took the gold coin 
again, and carelessly balancing it upon his nose, 
at the same time tossed the oranges one after the 
other into the air, juggling them with fine pre¬ 
cision so that they rose and fell rhythmically in 
time to music which the Cap’n alone could hear. 


208 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“They’re majicked!” Lemmy whispered spell¬ 
bound as he eyed the oranges flashing in the air 
while the coin remained apparently affixed to the 
Cap’n’s nose. 

His eyes grew wider yet when suddenly the 
Cap’n ended his performance by gathering in or¬ 
anges and coin with one grand sweep, not dropping 
a thing. 

“Now hold your hands,” the Cap’n invited. 

Before Lemmy could say Jack Robinson, there 
right in his own hands was one of the magician’s 
golden balls. 

“Shiver my timbers, did you never see an orange 
before?” the Cap’n cried as he watched Lemmy’s 
face. 

“Not a Majishun’s orange,” Lemmy answered, 
fingering his treasure reverently. 

“Taste it, young ’un—” 

“O-oh, I couldn’t!” Lemmy’s voice carried 
agony. 

“The Cap’n’s orders. Eat it and you get an¬ 
other.” 

Still Lemmy hesitated. 

“I’ll have one along with you,” the Cap’n urged 
sociably. “I can beat you peeling!” 

The Cap’n started to peel one of the erstwhile 
magic balls. Lemmy dug his teeth quickly into his 
own orange. The race was on. Lemmy’s squeal of 
victory as he threw down the last bit of rind sur¬ 
prised the Cap’n amazingly. 

“And mine only half peeled,” he exclaimed. 
“You are a quick ’un.” 

Then, quite naturally, Lemmy fell to eating 
oranges along with the Cap’n. 

“Eating oranges with a Majishun—what’d Gus 


THE ’DOPTERS 


209 


say?” Lemmy murmured, half in a trance. “What 
if I hadn’t run away from the ’Dopters?” 

“The ’Dopters?” The Cap’n put his head on 
one side and raised his eyebrows very much puz¬ 
zled indeed. “Who are they?” 

“Oh, the ’Dopters are always hanging round 
the Home, trying to carry us off. A fellah has to 
watch out all the time. They’re sharp as tacks, 
always trying to fool us by looking something 
diff’rent. Ev’ry time they come they change their 
clothes to put us off the track.” 

“Oh-ho—so you don’t like ’em, eh?” 

“Oh, I’m afraid of ’em, they scare me so!” 
Lemmy’s voice quivered pitifully. “All the time I 
have to think of ’em. I’m never, never safe from 
the ’Dopters. I bet they’d poke a fellah’s eyes 
out once they got him, or starve him maybe. Oh, 
I don’t know what a ’Dopter wouldn’t do!” 

The Cap’n listened gravely. Never once did 
he laugh as Lemmy poured forth his miserable fear 
of the ’Dopters. The Cap’n understood. Lemmy 
could tell that. By the time the oranges had dis¬ 
appeared, Lemmy had told the Cap’n all about the 
’Dopters and even confided the existence of Nippy. 

“I’ll show him to you,” Lemmy offered, hustling 
down the ladder to return with his pet toad upon a 
wet leaf for exhibition. 

The Cap’n was a gratifying sort. He saw at 
once Nippy’s good points—the beautiful brightness 
of his eyes, the fine spots upon his back, the superi¬ 
ority of his intellect. Nippy in turn winked his 
approval at the Cap’n as if they had many a joke 
in common. 

“As fine a toad as ever sat a rock or sailed the 
sea,” avowed the Cap’n enthusiastically. “By the 


210 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


bye, young man, how’d you like to take Nippy on 
a cruise with me?” 

Lemmy clutched the wall and gazed for one 
electrical second into the Cap’n’s eyes. 

It wasn’t a joke! 

“Can we start now?” Lemmy asked breath¬ 
lessly. 

The Cap’n bestirred himself instantly. 

“It’s high time to be off. Swing yourself down 
and I’ll catch you.” 

Lemmy ensconced Nippy quickly in the little 
perforated box which he always kept in his pocket 
for him; then he swung himself from the wall 
straight into the Cap’n’s arms. It seemed so nat¬ 
ural and safe to be walking along Outside, ahold of 
a Majisliun’s hand. Lemmy’s legs took on a fine 
stride. 

Down the hill they went with never a look 
behind at those gray walls, for their eyes were 
fixed upon the great lake, Superior, pulsing now 
under the wonder touch of the southwest wind, 
shimmering all the colors of the opal. There lay 
the boats poking up their brightly painted smoke¬ 
stacks for folks to see. Down, down, and down, 
such a short way, and yet, the wonderful farness 
of it! 

“Here we are at the docks—the Northern Star 
waiting for us,” the Cap’n announced presently. 

Lemmy swung along a little faster, for there 
in full sight were the high ore docks stretching far, 
far into the water. Of course they had been 
“majicked” there. Thus the wonder of them was 
explained. 

The Cap’n lifted him to his shoulder and walked 
along the abutment to one of the biggest freighters 
nosing the end of the dock. 


THE ’DOPTERS 


211 


“All aboard the Northern Star/’ the Cap’n said, 
giving him a lift up the ladder. 

Lemmy climbed like a little monkey, as fast as 
he could, for fear he wouldn’t really get aboard. 

Straight up to the bridge the Cap’n took him. 
“You can see us load up from here. Keep your 
eyes open and many a sight you’ll see.” Lemmy 
heard the Cap’n’s words as if in a dream. He 
looked w r onderingly about him. 

On top of the high dock he could see cars full 
of reddish, yellowish chunks which the Cap’n called 
iron ore. Hurrying about everywhere were the 
dock workers, smudged from head to foot with 
pigment which gave them the look of pirates. With 
quick calls these men loosened the doors in the 
bottoms of the cars to let the ore rattle down into 
the big pockets in the dock. But nearer at hand 
something more engrossing was happening. Deck¬ 
hands aboard the Northern Star were opening the 
hatches. All along the deck of the freighter the 
hatchways yawned ready for the load of ore. 
There was a great rattle of cables from above, and 
down came the chutes into the hatchways. Lemmy 
could see the men on the dock poking long poles 
into the pockets to set the ore sliding. The first 
chunks struck the bottom of the hold thunderingly 
and then heavy masses came sliding down the 
chutes with a steady, rushing sound which thrilled 
Lemmy like nothing he had ever heard before. It 
was not long before the big freighter was loaded 
full of the ore, and one after another the long 
chutes were drawn back into place against the 
dock. When the men set about closing the hatch¬ 
ways, the Cap’n took Lemmy below to see his 
quarters. 


212 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


What Lemmy saw first when he entered was 
an old sea chest. 

“Have a look in/* the Cap’n suggested, follow¬ 
ing Lemmy’s gaze. “It’s chock-full of stuff from 
everywhere.” 

He threw back the lid, and Lemmy had a whiff 
of tar and tobacco and salt, an indescribable smell, 
suggesting untold adventure. “Chock-full” the 
chest was of all manner of wonderful things: com¬ 
passes and shells, quadrants and gaudy strips of 
silk, battered old books, squinty-eyed monkeys 
carved out of ivory, long strings of many-colored 
beads, chains, silver and copper and gold all strung 
with bangles—there was no end to the treasure 
store. 

The Cap’n took a cutlass from the chest and 
balanced it upon his nose as easily as he had poised 
the coin there. 

“See here, young ’un,” he said suddenly. 
“You’re old enough to start learning magic.” 

A golden mist swam before Lemmy’s eyes. 

“You—you mean to learn to be a majishun?” 

“A sort of A-B-C magician, yes. Here, take 
this!” He thrust into Lemmy’s hand a carved 
ebony ring. “I’ll show you how to make it dis¬ 
appear.” 

Very patiently, the Cap’n initiated Lemmy into 
the rudiments of magic, teaching him how to ex¬ 
hibit with a flourish before imaginary spectators, 
then with an adroit pass to make it disappear until 
he chose by a swift movement to hold it once more 
in full view between his thumb and finger. The 
mastery of the old trick, dependent only upon a 
little dexterity in sleight-of-hand, filled Lemmy with 
enormous pride. He glowed with delight at the 


THE ’DOPTERS 


213 


Cap’n’s applause, mingled with the easily imagined 
handclapping from the invisible audience. He was 
lifted far, far away from commonplace things. 
He was a novitiate in a new world of unending 
mystery and delight. He tried to say “thank you” 
to the Cap’n, but his gratitude overwhelmed him. 
He could only press the ring back reverently into 
the Cap’n’s hand. There were no words for a thing 
such as this. 

Then came a noise at the door. At the Cap’n’s 
bidding in walked a burly fellow as big as the 
Cap’n himself. 

“Look at the young ’un, Andy McDonald—lie’s 
off with us tonight,” the Cap’n informed him. 

“Bless my soul,” Andy McDonald exclaimed, 
tousling Lemmy’s hair, “the Northern Star’s in 
luck.” 

“Now Andy’ll find you a proper place for Nip¬ 
py and I’ll be off on a bit of business before we 
set out.” The Cap’n left him with Andy McDon¬ 
ald, who knew exactly where to catch flies for 
Nippy and where to get pebbles to his liking and 
where to find just the sort of safe, dampish corner 
where he could voyage happily. Andy McDonald 
was very ingenious at devising quarters which 
would give Nippy plenty of room and yet keep 
him in bounds. 

“He might jump overboard in his sleep, you 
know, dreamin’ like,” Andy McDonald remarked 
as he screened Nippy in. 

As soon as Nippy was settled, Andy gave a 
shrill whistle which brought Chink, the rat terrier 
mascot of the boat, tearing to make Lemmy’s ac¬ 
quaintance. 

“He’s got a collar with spikes on it,” Lemmy 


214 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


cried excitedly. “And a piece of his ear’s nipped 
off!” 

“He gets scarred up, Chink does, but he never 
gets licked. Don’t let him get in a row with 
Nippy.” 

How could Lemmy know that during these en¬ 
chanted moments with Andy McDonald the Cap’n 
was talking with Miss Boyder about “parental his¬ 
tory” and “hereditary instincts” and all the rest 
of the ’Dopters’ secrets? 

It was at table that Lemmy saw the Cap’n again 
—the head of a feast befitting a Majishun such as 
he. Lemmy tried hard not to gobble, but the 
chicken was oh, so tender, and he had never before 
tasted what the Cap’n called “kumquats.” There 
was so much he couldn’t possibly eat it all. He 
finally gave up trying when the Cap’n assured him 
that there would be more tomorrow. 

Up on the bridge again Lemmy watched the 
busy engine haul in the cables which held the 
freighter to the dock. A capable little tug, which 
the Cap’n called familiarly “Sultana,” came to help 
them head the boat into the channel. 

“We’re off,” cried the Cap’n as the Sultana 
chug-chugged away, while with slow majesty the 
Northern Star made its way out into the lake. 

“Look behind at the Diamond Necklace,” Andy 
called to him. Turning to look back, Lemmy saw 
the Allouez ore docks glittering, palpitating, in the 
fast gathering purple of the night. Upon the hill 
electric signs blazed out fantastically; here a red 
sun rising over a green hill, and farther on a multi¬ 
colored fan opening and closing with a bewildering 
flash; then came a comical, twinkling bucket of 
shiny paint which would bubble over. Past the 


THE ’DOPTERS 


215 


signs came rows and rows of lights set regularly 
like soldiers. 

The Northern Star was moving faster now, 
passing between the big piers of the canal under 
the Aerial Bridge past the lighthouse with revolv¬ 
ing signals. 

A big passenger boat coming into the harbor 
passed them swiftly, giving two long whistles by 
way of greeting. Lemmy caught the tinkle of 
music and the sound of people laughing on board— 
then suddenly they were gone. 

Out—out—past all the lights went the North¬ 
ern Star straight into the silver white moon path 
stretching endlessly across the water. 

Lemmy looked up at the winking stars and 
leaned comfortably back against the Cap’n’s arm. 

“I’m safe now from the ’Dopters,” he whis¬ 
pered exultantly. 

“We’ve given them the slip,” the Cap’n assured 
him. “They’ll never get you now.” 

Dreamily, with his head upon the Cap’n’s shoul¬ 
der, Lemmy happily fingered the ebony ring which 
had somehow “got majicked” into his pocket. 

Aileen Cleveland Higgins. 


PREM SINGH 

Prem Singh had company. When I went in 
the gathering dusk to feed the cow I noticed, in¬ 
stead of the usual solitary figure crouched above 
the little camp fire in the open, two lean forms 
silhouetted against the dancing flames, while a flow 
of guttural conversation that broke occasionally 
into seemingly excited treble argument mingled 
with the fragrant smoke from burning greasewood 
roots. 

“He probably has a letter from India,” I told 
the Lady of the Castle, when I went back into the 
little stone house, “and has rung in a chap from 
the gang below to read it to him.” 

“From his brother, probably,” said the Lady. 
“He’ll be all excited over it. You’ll have to do 
the milking.” 

Her surmise as to the letter was correct, though 
I didn’t have to do the milking. 

“Letter come China country! My brother!” 
Prem Singh announced exultantly, when he came 
for the milk pail. “Pretty good!” He ducked his 
head sideways in a delighted nod. “I go milk now.” 

We had known of this brother ever since the 
Hindu had become our devoted and isolated ad¬ 
herent. He was Prem Singh’s family, the only 
relative he had in the world. 

“My father, mammy, been die,” he had ex¬ 
plained to me. “Both. My father, my mammy, 


PREM SINGH 


217 


two my sister, my little brother: all one time die. 
Too much sick. All my uncle, my auntie, every¬ 
body die. Too many people. Just me, my big 
brother, live. Thass all.” From which we gath¬ 
ered that a cholera epidemic had left the two boys 
orphans: Prem Singh, now our vassal, and Kala 
Singh, half a dozen years older, at present a Brit¬ 
ish policeman at Shanghai. 

It was a poor life, this brother’s, but highly 
treasured by the younger brother, who, curiously 
enough, proved to be the stable member of the 
family. Kala Singh had left a bad record behind 
him in India, including a year’s jail sentence for 
knifing a co-conspirator in a bank robbery. 

“My brother pretty much been marry,” Prem 
Singh told me one time, his face clouding over. 
“One time twelve hundred, one time fifteen hun¬ 
dred, dollar—my country rupee. All go.” He 
snapped his fingers to illustrate the disappearance 
of the marriage money into thin air. “Too much 
drink. Too much gambler.” 

Evidence that the black sheep had never mend¬ 
ed his ways was furnished abundantly in the re¬ 
peated requests that came for money, which Prem 
Singh never refused. 

“Mester,” he would usually ask me on the day 
succeeding the arrival of a letter from “China 
country,” “you two hundred dollar today bank take 
off, mice.” I had never been able to teach him the 
use of the possessive “mine”; it was invariably 
mice. “I send money China country. My brother.” 

Once or twice I remonstrated with him about 
this, to no purpose. After all, it was his own 
money: the two dollars a day which, with practi¬ 
cally no outgo, added up month by month in the 


218 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


bank. A letter from India, which he told me came 
from one of his brother’s deserted wives, proved 
equally futile, though troubling him for several 
days. Its only ultimate result was to prejudice 
his young mind still further against womankind 
and the institution of marriage. 

“Me? Not any been marry!” he assured me, 
his eyes flashing. “Never! All time too much 
trouble! No good.” 

Yet he was engaged, one of those betrothals 
arranged in infancy by Hindu parents, binding till 
death. It hung over Prem Singh like a sword of 
Damocles, exiling him forever from his native land. 

“This country pretty good,” he told me often. 
“Girl wait all time my country. Twenty year old 
now, I guess, maybe. I stay America! Pretty 
good. Not any go back!” He shook his head 
emphatically. “Maybe some time my brother come 
this country. Thass good!” His eyes gleamed at 
the pleasant vision. 

It was this dream of a reunion with his beloved 
black sheep of a brother in the great and good land 
of America, far from the cloudy danger of marriage 
that overhung all India, that more than any other 
illumined his long days and lonely evenings on the 
California mesa. He kept aloof from the other 
Hindus, from the large camps where they congre¬ 
gated, twenty and thirty together, for the clearing 
work that in time was to transform mesa into 
orchard land. He preferred to remain alone, apart, 
as my man. 

“You pretty good man, Mester,” he told me. 
“I all time stay here, please. I your man. My 
life!” Then he smiled. “Maybe some time my 
brother come; then two your men! Both. Thass 
pretty good!” 


PREM SINGH 


219 


And now the dream seemed likely to material¬ 
ize. When he returned with the full milk pail, 
Prem Singh had a question to ask. He fidgeted 
awkwardly about it, remaining in the kitchen an 
unconscionable length of time, resting one foot and 
then the other. It came out at last with a rush. 

“Hester, how much you think cost ticket, 
Shanghai this country?” 

“I don’t know, Prem Singh. I’ll find out in 
Los Angeles, if you want. Steerage?” 

“No, sair!” He was indignant. “Not any! 
Maybe my brother come this country. Second 
class, sure. Thass pretty good.” 

I learned the amount, and it went forward on 
the next boat by money order to Kala Singh, care 
Sikh Temple, Shanghai. Then followed for Prem 
Singh a protracted period of pleasant anticipation 
that ended dismally two months later when another 
letter arrived from China country, announcing that 
the money was gone. 

“Too much gambler, my brother,” Prem Singh 
confided to me sadly. “I guess ticket more better.” 

It was a good idea; and the next registered let¬ 
ter carried no additional money order, but instead 
a one-way ticket, second class, from Shanghai. 

This was efficacious; and when, six weeks later, 
another letter arrived from Shanghai, Prem Singh 
came to the house in a tremble of excitement. 

“Mester, you know Salina Cruz ? This coun¬ 
try? Canada? I guess not. Mecseeco? I guess 
maybe! My brother come Salina Cruz. English 
read.” He always used the word “read” indis¬ 
criminately for read or write, reading or writing. 

Inclosed with the sheet covered with Indian 
script was a small slip bearing a message in Eng- 


220 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


lish. “Arrive Salina Cruz November 29/’ it read. 
“Send money.” 

“I guess my brother read maybe, himself/’ an¬ 
nounced Prem Singh, scanning it closely. “Pretty 
smart man, my brother. English pretty good speak. 
My country read easy, English read little. Me not 
any. Not smart, me.” Then he shook his head. “I 
guess this not any my brother read.” 

I guessed not either. It was a very fair hand¬ 
writing indeed. 

“You think all right send money Salina Cruz, 
Mester?” 

I did not think so, emphatically not. Prem 
Singh was in doubt. His natural caution warned 
him against such a move. On the other hand his 
affection for his brother, his instinctive generosity, 
his desire to hasten in any way possible his 
brother’s approach to the land of promise, urged 
him on. In the end he decided to wait for a more 
definite request. 

It was not long in coming, arriving in the form 
of a telegram almost on the heels of the letter. 
“Send seventy dollars, Kala Singh, care British 
Consul, Salina Cruz, Mexico,” the message ran. 
Evidently this brother was no fool. 

Prem Singh immediately dispatched a hundred 
by registered mail, bemoaning only the fact that 
the telegraph company would not transmit money 
to that point. 

Followed another period of waiting—anxious 
this time, for why should there be so much delay? 
—and then the end. 

It is no easy matter for Hindus to enter this 
country, though there is as yet no definite Hindu 
exclusion act. The immigration laws already in 


PREM SINGH 


221 


existence can be so construed, in accordance with 
the desires of a certain rabid element of whites on 
the Pacific Coast, that it is almost impossible for 
a turbaned citizen of Great Britain to enter the 
United States. For the most part those that now 
drift into this country of ours land in Canada or 
Mexico, and straggle across the international line, 
running the gauntlet to escape detection. 

This Kala Singh attempted. It was at Christ¬ 
mas time, we learned through a Hindu who had 
made the voyage from Shanghai with him. Landed 
at Salina Cruz, they had taken boat again for En¬ 
senada ; thence, working overland, had come to the 
American border in the vicinity of Yuma. The pair 
had been detected by the border patrol, pursued, 
captured, and locked up for the night in a small 
jail. Participating, before daylight, with men held 
for greater offenses, in a general jail break, they 
had been ordered to halt, and fired upon in the 
darkness. Kala Singh had been found by a chance 
bullet, and killed instantly. 

“Isn’t there anything we can do?” the Lady of 
the Castle asked me when I told her about it. 
“Isn’t there anything?” 

I went out to where Prem Singh crouched alone 
over his little fire of greasewood roots under the 
great vault of heaven. 

“Hello, Mester!” he called listlessly, as I ap¬ 
proached awkwardly. 

“Hello, Prem Singh!” I answered. 

There was a pause. “I make my country 
bread,” he announced at length, clearing his throat, 
obviously manufacturing conversation in order to 
put me at my ease; and then, after a little: “I 
think maybe go back my country pretty soon.” 


222 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“Go back to India, Prem Singh?” I was genu¬ 
inely surprised. 

He nodded affirmation. “Next month, maybe, 
I go,” he said wearily. “America not very good. 
My country more better. Maybe bime-by been 
marry.” 

John Amid. 


EVEN SO 

It all happened a century ago. “On this day,” 
the village minister of those other years wrote in 
his slow, regular hand—the pages of his journal 
are yellow as saffron now, and the ink is faded 
brown—“on this day did Captain Hastings sail in 
command of the Amaryllis, taking with him, as 
hitherto, poor Christine Widmer, concerning whom 
there has been so much talk. For my own part I 
cannot be properly scandalized by their relation. 
Certainly the thought of marriage with one in her 
condition is not to be tolerated, and I believe her 
to be happier with him than elsewhere.” Christian 
charity, indeed! 

There have always been men of the Hastings 
name in the village. They came in the days of its 
first settlement. There are a score of them living 
here at this very minute. And, like the most of 
them in the early years of the republic, Donald 
Hastings followed the sea. Honest, impetuous, 
young, as were so many of those sea captains in 
that golden era of the early nineteenth century, he 
left but one shadow on his memory—perhaps not 
altogether a shadow. Therein lies the story. 

* * 

Above the junk the masts and spars of a ship 
loomed in the moonlight. 

Singsong voices swelled to a wild chatter, and 


224 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


the steering sweep was swung hard over. But the 
old junk, clumsy and slow to obey her helm, re¬ 
mained in the center of the channel. For a mo¬ 
ment, collision was imminent. Then from the deck 
of that Chinese vessel on the Chu Kiang, one of 
thousands as like as their yellow masters, came the 
sharp call: 

“Ahoy there! Bear off!” 

“Who’s there below?” A deep voice from above 
roared the words in a tone of amazement. 

A rattle of commands came down to the junk, 
hoarse and loud on the night air. The Chinese 
clamored in ducklike harshness of speech. Then 
the slowly turning junk and the veering ship 
passed by a margin of inches. And as they passed, 
seven men came scrambling over the bulwarks of 
the ship to a deck filled with shadowy figures that 
gathered in a silent circle. Then the circle opened 
and one man, standing out from the rest, confront¬ 
ed the seven in the near darkness. 

“Well,” said he, in a low, deliberate voice, “who 
and what are you?” 

“This,” replied the leader of the seven, with a 
quick gesture, “is all that is left of the crew of the 
Helen of Troy.” 

“Ah!” The voice was cool and noncommittal. 
“Of the Helen of Troy. Do you know what ship 
this is?” 

“Who are you?” the man from the junk de¬ 
manded suddenly. 

The other laughed shortly. “I—” he began. 

“You are Amos Widmer!” 

And Amos Widmer it was. 

“Yes, I am Amos Widmer—and you are . . . 
all that is left of the crew of the Helen of Troy!” 


EVEN SO 


225 


There was a suggestion of irony in his tone. He 
stood there for a time, smiling queerly in the dusk, 
and looking past the other, who faced him with 
folded arms. His was not a pleasant smile. 

“Boy,” he said at last in a soft, gentle voice, 
“Captain Hastings, of the Helen of Troy, will 
have the unoccupied stateroom. Show him down, 
and put yourself at his service.” 

There was one porthole to the stateroom, iron 
gray it seemed, and a lantern swung from an over¬ 
head beam. When the boy had gone, Hastings 
leaned back and surveyed darkly the narrow con¬ 
fines of the little room. 

Then he heard a woman laughing somewhere 
in the ship, as if a long way off, and was swept 
by a flood of conflicting emotions. 

In a way, it had all begun long before, when 
the Helen of Troy slipped through the narrows of 
my old New England port on a day in early June, 
the wind abeam, and was passed by a ship outward 
bound under full press of canvas. The scene came 
back to Hastings there in the dim light of the state¬ 
room; the New England shore dark against the 
yellow sunset; the ship, phantom-like, her sails 
barred by shadows of spar and rigging; then the 
rumbling voice of the mate of the Helen of Troy: 
“The Winnemere, as I’m alive! It ain’t in nature 
to be meeting with her always. Nagasaki! Bata¬ 
via ! Sumatra! Aye, she sang another tune, 
though, the night we passed her in Macassar 
Strait.” 

It seemed to Hastings that he could hear again 
his own reply, faint and far off: “There were light 
winds that night. But she’s an able craft in coarse 
weather.” Training his glass at the tall figure on 


226 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


the deck of the outgoing vessel, he had muttered, 
“Grin, damn ye, grin!” and flung back his head 
with an air of elation. Not in ships alone were 
Donald Hastings and Amos Widmer rivals. 

So the Winnemere had sailed to meet the on¬ 
coming dusk, and the Helen of Troy had come 
bravely into port. And there Donald Hastings had 
heard an old story, and like many a better man 
before him, had gone back to the sea to forget that 
he ever had loved. But one thing he had not been 
able to forget. 

After a time that faint laughter, breaking the 
pregnant silence of the little stateroom, came again 
to Hastings’ ears. There was in it a strange note 
that puzzled him, an unfamiliarity that overbore 
the lingering familiarity of its tone. Presently, as 
he stood with parted lips, the boy came, knocking, 
and asked him to the captain’s cabin. As he trav¬ 
ersed the narrow passage he heard the laughter yet 
again, louder now, and more than ever was puzzled 
by it. For though it reminded him of Christine 
Duncan’s voice, it had a penetrating wildness like 
no laughter he had heard before. He entered the 
door with his hands half raised, as if to guard 
against an unexpected attack. But the gesture was 
needless. Amos Widmer, calm as Buddha, was 
seated already at the oak table. 

Smiling softly when his guest appeared, Wid¬ 
mer motioned him to a chair. “Now then, boy,” he 
murmured, “what has that black scoundrel in the 
galley got ready for us?” 

And the boy vanished, flinching in the door. 

“I did not expect this honor,” Hastings began. 

“The honor is mine.” Unstopping the decanter 
on the table, Widmer filled two wine glasses. “Your 
health, sir!” he said. 


EVEN SO 


227 


Hastings fingered the stem of his own glass. 
Young and hot-headed, versed in rough courtesies 
and frank enmities, he was placed at a singular 
disadvantage by this quiet man with the eyes of a 
devil. “I did not expect this honor, sir,” he re¬ 
peated, “or this pleasure. Your—” his pause was 
almost imperceptible—“wife?” 

“She is ailing.” 

Of the two, Hastings was the less mature, al¬ 
though perhaps physically the stronger. Certainly 
his face, frank, impetuous, fearless, was the more 
wholesome. But lacking the easy grace and the 
calm assurance that characterized the other, he 
realized a certain want in his own hard schooling 
that left him almost powerless in the duel of wits, 
baffled by a bewildering subtlety, like a young 
fencer drilled in the rudiments, blade to blade, 
meeting for the first time an opponent who refuses 
contact. There was the same sense of helplessness, 
the same mental groping for possible parries and 
thrusts, without the comforting rasp of steel on 
steel, that to the trained hand and wrist reveals 
more than sight itself of an antagonist’s intent. 
Once an enemy always an enemy, unless there were 
reason otherwise, he had supposed. He breathed 
deeply. 

“I am sorry,” he replied. 

Self-possessed, yet watching his uninvited guest 
between almost imperceptibly narrowed eyelids, 
Widmer continued casually, “Yes, she is ailing. 
But of yourself? How came you here?” 

“Our masts were carried away in a typhoon. 
The natives came out, apparently to plunder the 
waterlogged hull, but, by the grace of God, human 
compassion was stirred in their yellow bellies. The 


228 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


Helen of Troy was an able ship—” Hastings eyed 
Widmer with a touch of patronage that passed ap¬ 
parently unnoticed “—and a rich cargo was under 
her hatches, but there was no way to save her.” 

“I see.” 

Hastings fingered the stem of his glass. Silence 
filled the cabin. Then the boy appeared with a 
great tray. 

“For some reason,” Widmer began after a time, 
“I am reminded of a garden, a garden with honey¬ 
suckle in bloom. There’s a white house by the 
garden, three stories high and square as a cube. 
Do you remember the house? A door with oval- 
paned side lights? And the little pillars?” 

Hastings’ face whitened, except for a red spot 
on each cheek. Shoving back his chair, he half 
rose. “If you—” he cried. 

“Ha! ha! I see you remember the garden. 
Surely you would not resent a mere pleasantry. 
That garden! How many times we have avoided 
meeting there, you and I. Well, it’s all over now. 
Don’t hold ill will toward me, even though I car¬ 
ried off the queen of the garden. Men have loved 
and lost and laid resentment aside before now. It 
is a bond between us that we have loved Christine 
Duncan. If only she were stronger, how gladly 
she would join me in welcoming you. It is long 
since she has been able to receive guests.” Wid- 
mer’s voice fell, perhaps a trifle more than was 
natural. Certainly his eyes never left the flush on 
Hastings’ face. But his voice rose again, lightly, 
as he resumed. “Allow me!” And he proffered 
the decanter. 

Again the adversary had withdrawn his blade. 
Again that baffling sense of nothing to contend with. 


EVEN SO 


229 


When, late, Hastings returned to his quarters, 
he heard, in the still watches of the night, a woman 
laughing faintly. 

Already in the far interior of China the cold 
fingers of winter were reaching toward the south, 
and the northeast monsoon had settled on the sea. 
But where now innumerable steamships are to be 
met,—tramps, their iron flanks streaked with rust; 
trim liners of Japan, the almost untranslatable 
Maru coupled with their names; dingy coasters, 
slattern traders, and men of war from half the 
navies of the world,—a hundred years ago there 
were only the slow junks and the white-sailed ships 
of the Occident, with now and then a high-sided, 
square-sterned Dutchman. 

The next evening Hastings came on deck and, 
standing by the taffrail, gazed long toward Hainan 
and the sunset. No boat was in sight. Save for 
a small island that lay a point abaft the beam, the 
Winnemere was running before the wind through 
an unbroken expanse of water. Hearing steps, he 
turned. 

It was Widmer. “A fine evening,” he remarked 
in his singularly restrained voice. 

“It is, indeed.” 

Silence followed. Since the seven survivors of 
the Helen of Troy had come tumbling over the 
bulwarks of the Winnemere there had been many 
such silent moments. Always the words exchanged 
by the two captains were like those tentative 
thrusts with which the fencer tries the mettle of 
his opponent. 

“It is a pleasure to be able to bring home the 
crew of the Helen of Troy,” Widmer said, slowly, 
covertly watching the other’s face. “I remember 


230 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


when you left us in Macassar Strait. The Winne- 
mere was always a slow craft in light winds. Your 
men like to tell the story of that race.” 

Hastings, red of face, made no reply. 

“Yes, there was much talk of that race. You 
beat us on the run up from the Horn another time 
—that story, too, became well known. Remarkably 
well known.” 

Looking off at the single island, a dark blot on 
the shining sea, Widmer laughed softly. 

“There was another race, however: a race by 
land. There was a prize for that race, such a 
prize!” Facing about at Hastings, he bit his 
mustache angrily. “Well, though the prize was 
rotten at the heart, I won it, by God!” he whis¬ 
pered. 

Hastings turned, his fists clenched, but Widmer, 
the tension of his face departing like a shadow, 
raised his hand and stepped two paces back. “Be 
careful, Captain Hastings. A single blow, and 
you would find yourself in the lazarette. You have 
the freedom of the ship, but—merely a hint, Cap¬ 
tain Hastings, as from friend to friend—guests on 
this ship have found it unwholesome to leave the 
straight path from their stateroom to the deck. 
Ships have many eyes.” Widmer paused. “It will 
be a rare pleasure to bring home the captain of the 
Helen of Troy, but if necessary—•” Leaving the 
sentence unfinished, he smiled and strolled away. 

And that night, when he should have been 
asleep, again Hastings heard the woman laughing. 

The breath of the monsoon stirred the sea from 
Hie-che-chin to Vanguard Bank, and leagues and 
leagues beyond. In the moonlight the waves came 
rolling up in mountains of silver, vanishing again 


EVEN SO 


231 


into the farther darkness, in never-ending succes¬ 
sion. They swept past the Winnemere as, with all 
sail set, she bore down the China Sea, past her and 
away into the distance like shoals of fish tumbling 
in the water, and when they had gone a long jour¬ 
ney they came to a derelict hull, and tossed it and 
turned it, and bore it on. 

When Widmer had gone on deck, Hastings 
emerged from his narrow quarters and made his 
way swiftly through the now familiar cabin, 
through the captain’s own stateroom, to the single 
door beyond. He heard, indistinctly from behind 
the closed door, only a confusion of small sounds, 
the rustle of skirts, the faint noise of some wooden 
object pushed along the floor, then the murmur of 
a voice. “Hush,” it said, very softly, “little one, 
. . . little one . . . ” Then it broke and rose 
suddenly to a small, plaintive cry. “He isn’t 
here, . . . where can he be ? . . . little one! . . . 
little one!” 

With shaking hand Hastings fumbled for the 
latch, found it, and pushed, then pulled, but the 
oaken door did not yield. 

Then from within came that low, strange laugh¬ 
ter, and the voice, singularly restrained now, “little 
one, . . . little one!” 

Startled by footsteps on deck just outside the 
companionway, Hastings turned back through the 
darkness to his stateroom, and closed the door very 
gently as the companionway was shadowed by. the 
form of some one descending. 

Almost stifled by the confinement of the room, 
he went on deck, when the way was clear, and 
leaned over the weather rail, with the wind and 
the flying spray beating hard against his face. 


232 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


But even so, he felt, strangely, that the air was 
close and that he was restricted by something at 
once vague, yet paradoxically definite. By and 
by, wandering amidships, he found the second mate, 
late promoted from the forecastle, smoking com¬ 
fortably by the mainmast, and glad of a chance to 
beguile the watch with friendly conversation. 

So foreign ‘to Hastings’ blunt directness was 
the finesse of intrigue that even the unsuspecting 
mate was not drawn off his guard. Coming, as he 
thought, adroitly to the subject that filled his 
mind, Hastings was surprised by the sudden change 
in the second officer’s attitude. 

“I suppose,” he had remarked, in a voice care¬ 
fully casual, “Captain Widmer has no children.” 

The officer’s attitude seemed all at once a little 
less friendly. Raising his eyes to the dark heavens, 
he remarked, “It’s a raw night, for all there’s no 
great of a wind.” 

“I suppose,” Hastings repeated, more loudly, 
“Captain Widmer—■” 

“It’s al’ays seemed hard lines to me that the 
Lord didn’t put monsoons in the north Atlantic. 
Think o’ the good they’d do thereabouts! To be 
sure, typhoons is a curse. But there’s the trades, 
say. Now, if the Lord had only seed fit—” 

“Damn the trades, I say. Did Captain Wid¬ 
mer ever have a child?” 

The other took his pipe from his mouth and 
eyed the master of the Helen of Troy speculatively'. 
“It don’t do, sir,” he replied, with a cautious glance 
about, “to ask questions aboard this vessel. A 
child, you say ? There was a child. But—” again 
glancing aft, the man lowered his voice to a whis¬ 
per, “I mistrust it warn’t his’n.” 


EVEN SO 


233 


The next day the two captains met for the first 
time at dinner in the cabin, Hastings silent, Wid- 
mer smiling with his lips, in spite of mirthless eyes. 

For a time neither spoke. The boy, in mute 
testimony to the fit of ill temper that had beset 
Widmer, scurried back and forth in obvious terror. 
As the ship rolled, the water in the glasses and the 
wine in the decanter rocked this way and that. It 
was Widmer, as usual, who broke the silence. “I 
have heard,” he said in his low voice, “that some 
one was listening outside my door last night. If 
any man in my crew were caught there, I’d have 
him pitched to the sharks.” 

“Do you mean that I—•” 

“Yes, sir, I’d have him pitched to the sharks. 
There is no occasion for excitement. Certainly no 
guest of mine would be guilty of anything like that. 
I should not like to be under the necessity of send¬ 
ing a guest of mine forward. But as sure as my 
name is Amos Widmer, if it comes to action I’ll 
act with the best of them—or the worst.” 

Then Hastings smiled. “It would indeed be a 
singular circumstance that would force a gentle¬ 
man—” the stress on the word was ever so slight— 
“to take such measures with a guest.” 

So deep the silence, as they finished the meal, 
that each heard twice the faint ripple of a woman’s 
laugh. 

With all her canvas set, the Winnemere swept 
on down the long line dotted on the charts, to 
Singapore and Malacca Strait; and off among the 
islands, with the stumps of her broken masts rising 
from the seas that washed her decks, lay the hull 
of the Helen of Troy. 

Evening came, and again the two sat opposite 


234 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


each other at the cabin table. But this time Has¬ 
tings was the more taciturn. After the manner of 
many an outspoken man who becomes all at once 
aware that he has been made game of,, he withdrew 
into a silence that, half unwittingly, met Widmer 
at his own game. And Widmer, with that unpleas¬ 
ant light in his eyes, again masked himself with 
exaggerated courtesy. 

“Who would have thought—•” his voice was un¬ 
naturally smooth as he repeated the sentence for 
the twentieth time, lingering over the irony of each 
phrase, “—who would have thought that I should 
have the honor of bringing home Captain Hastings, 
of the Helen of Troy!” Then he laughed shortly. 

Hastings raised his glass, as if unaware that 
he had been addressed. 

“Such an honor!” Widmer continued. “Think 
of it. More than once I’ve raced the Helen of 
Troy and been beaten. And a good many times 
more than once I’ve seen Donald Hastings sitting 
in the garden by the white house, and have gone 
away and left him there. But there was a time 
when Donald Hastings found the gate open and 
the garden empty. And now the time is come when 
all that is left of the crew of the Helen of Troy 
is right glad of passage on the Winnemere.” 

If there was any indication that Hastings was 
listening to the other’s words, it was only in the 
tension of his fingers as they pressed the table top, 
and in the whiteness of his knuckles. 

But Widmer, speaking at intervals as if to 
probe for some most sensitive nerve center, went 
on, his eyes fixed on Hastings’ forehead: “An 
empty garden—and now the Helen of Troy is gone 
—it would be an honor indeed to bring him home, 


EVEN SO 


235 


but an empty honor, after all—what if he never 
came home—if—!” Suddenly he lowered his eyes 
until they looked into Hastings’ own. “My wife, 
sir,’’ he said with fierce intensity, “cried the day 
I married her, cried at her wedding, shed a bucket 
of tears. Tears are no wedding flummery, sir. I 
didn’t know then why it was. But I know now. 
Do you hear? I know, damn it, know." 

Once again Hastings felt the rasp of steel, and 
closed to the combat in a manner worthy of his 
opponent’s saner moments. “If you mean to im- 

ply—” 

Before his slow speech was past his lips, Wid- 
mer interrupted him, changing his expression so 
facilely that Hastings felt again that sense of 
losing all touch with the blade that maneuvered for 
his weakness: “I beg you to pardon me. I was 
excited. Of course I imply nothing. Nothing that 
you would be guilty of.” 

And Hastings, quicker of hand than of brain, 
tried again to follow that baffling change of front. 
He was gaining experience in that other school of 
fence, and was not so easily evaded now. 

Throughout the meal he studied Widmer cau¬ 
tiously. Thin mouth, cold eyes, an outward polite¬ 
ness itself threatening by the suggestion of what 
lay behind it. He had known the man’s reputation 
of old; the ever-present apprehension of the cabin 
boy, the servility of the mate, the silence of the 
crew, all went to bear it out. 

Yes, each knew; and each knew, unconfessed, 
that the other knew. All night the thought haunted 
Hastings. He recalled numerous half-spoken sen¬ 
tences fraught with scarcely concealed meaning, 
and others, outspoken and direct, that made no 


236 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


pretense of concealment. He had come back to the 
sea to forget that he ever had loved, but, after all, 
he could not forget. He even doubted if the girl 
had forgotten. Such dreams as they had dreamed 
together do not vanish overnight. He saw her on 
the porch of the old house, by the slim, white pil¬ 
lars. He remembered her in the garden sweet with 
honeysuckle. On the wharf, by the church door, 
here, there, everywhere, among the familiar scenes 
of the old town, she appeared in the eyes of his 
memory. Then like a dark cloud came the memory 
of a certain night—and the strange laughter, the 
locked door, and the words he had heard her say. 

At noon next day Widmer was gay. He 
laughed and joked, and seemed unaware of Has¬ 
tings’ silence. At night he gave himself up again 
to a politeness elaborate and artificial. But through 
it all Hastings felt a certain threatening under¬ 
tone. And Widmer, taking no chances, gave secret 
orders, quite as if he had not fathomed Hastings 
and found him shallow to the lead. 

The sun set in a blaze of fire, shooting great 
beams of light far into the heavens, and the moon 
rose in a pale halo. A junk in the offing tossed on 
the long swell that rolled away into the distance, 
and the Winnemere, her braces rattling as they ran, 
leaned easily before the wind that swept the gray 
sea. The sky changed from blue to scarlet, from 
scarlet to flaming gold, and from gold, as the night 
set in, to sea green and steel blue. The ship’s 
lanterns twinkled in the dusk; the stars came out 
thickly overhead; and presently, as the moon 
climbed above the horizon, its wan light thinly 
illuminated the decks of the ship and the towering 
structure of masts and spars and canvas and cord¬ 
age. 


EVEN SO 


237 


Late at night, when all was quiet, Hastings 
crept out of his berth. For a time he could hear 
only the straining of ropes, the creaking of blocks, 
and the whisper of the sea. Then he heard the 
sound of some one sobbing. Then the sound 
changed to that low laugh. 

That laugh! He had half expected, half 
feared, to hear it. He felt within himself the sharp 
palpitation stimulated by quick, intense emotion, 
that for lack of a better name we call leaping of 
the heart. With a quick motion he started for¬ 
ward in the darkness, but his feet struck something 
soft. It was the little cabin boy, asleep on a folded 
blanket. Uttering a cry, the lad scrambled to his 
feet and fled up the companionway. 

For a moment there was silence, heavy and 
suspicious, then, out of the dark, came Widmer’s 
calm challenge. “What does this mean?” 

Again silence ensued. The slow opening of a 
shutter, through which a few rays of light had 
been struggling feebly, suffused the scene with a 
dim, yellow glow. Hastings, his knees slightly 
bent, his hands raised as for attack or defense, his 
lips parted, was confronted by Amos Widmer, who 
stood with folded arms, smiling softly. 

“What does this mean?” he repeated, in the 
same low, calm voice. 

Taken at an overwhelming disadvantage, Has¬ 
tings’ mind, groping, could summon no reply. 

Down the companionway came only the familiar 
sounds of a ship at sea, the creaking of blocks and 
braces, the low voices of the watch, the whisper of 
the ocean. 

“So, sir, you presume upon my hospitality!” 

“There are laws—” Hastings’ voice was thick 
-—“that override the laws of ‘hospitality.’ ” 


238 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“I fear, sir, you are little versed in the customs 
of gentlemen.” And Widmer, measuring the effect 
of the retort, let the smile creep to his eyes. 

Drawing himself erect, Hastings stepped for¬ 
ward until the shadow of the casement fell across 
his face and masked it, but although he said noth¬ 
ing, Widmer persisted. 

“Gentlemen have a code of their own. And 
when a man fails to meet that code, it is sometimes 
necessary to teach him a painful lesson.” 

Another pause followed, then, clearly and dis¬ 
tinctly, a shrill laugh from somewhere beyond the 
cabin sounded on the night air. 

“Gentlemen—” Widmer’s sneering voice began 
again, but the sentence was not finished. 

An outthrust hand flung back the shutter. 
There was a quick movement in the sudden dark¬ 
ness, a hoarse gasp, a strange sound that frightened 
the little cabin boy, who had thrown himself, belly 
down, by the open hatch overhead, then from above 
came the lookout’s voice, sharp with warning. 

“Sail ho!” 

“Where away?” 

“Dead ahead! Something afloat under the 
bows!” 

“Where—■” 

“Wear ship—put down your helm!” 

A third voice broke into the dialogue: “What’s 
all this ? There’s nothing there.” 

“I tell you, sir, I see it— There it lifts, by 
heaven!” 

All at once came a crash and shock that sent 
the mizzen-topmast by the board, and hurled men 
from their feet. For a moment there was silence, 
then that shrill yell sounded, that wrings hearts: 

“Man overboard!” 


EVEN SO 


339 


The trample of feet was broken by the voice 
of the mate: 

“All hands on deck!” Then the voice came 
down the hatch into the darkness below: “Captain 
Widmer! Captain Widmer! For God’s sake, come 
up! We’ve run afoul a derelict!” 

But from Amos Widmer there was no reply. 

Instead, as the boats were launched by the 
pale light of the crescent moon, and the Winne- 
mere, listing heavily to port, settled rapidly, the 
captain of the Helen of Troy appeared by the after 
port davits, with a woman wrapped in a loose cloak. 

And when the boats were in the water Donald 
Hastings and the woman in the loose cloak sat in 
the sternsheets of the third to be launched. And 
the men, as they rowed, heard snatches of the 
woman’s talk, which was about a child; how some 
one had cursed it and its father, and how the child 
was gone now. Sometimes the woman laughed a 
strange laugh that the men did not like, but they 
were only sailors, so they rowed on into the night 
and asked no questions. 

By and by they rested on their oars and, look¬ 
ing back, saw an extraordinary sight. Revealed 
in the faint moonlight, the Winnemere, sinking by 
the head, set at defiance the natural laws of ships 
upon the sea. At first it seemed as if her masts 
were being raked forward, then her stern rose, 
then, without sound or sign, she went under with 
all sail set. And from somewhere came a whisper 
that the derelict with the two upstanding stumps 
of masts, which went rolling down the wind, was 
all that was left of the Helen of Troy. All—but 
victorious. 

The first sunrise coming slowly on the track 


240 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


of daylight found the boats, a little group of dark 
spots in the vast plain of the sea, held together, 
apparently, by something of that same magnetic 
power that leads two bits of cork to adhere each to 
each. When the sun rose again, they were scat¬ 
tered over miles of gray ocean. When the third 
day broke from a sky banked with clouds, only two 
boats were to be seen—two boats and a single sail 
small on the horizon. 

The sail grew and took shape. Out of the bor¬ 
derland between sea and sky came a bark flying 
the flag of England. Presently, as she headed into 
the wind, the woman, lying in Donald Hastings’ 
arms, saw dimly the faces lined above the rail, then 
was lifted on board and carried into the cabin. 

“Donald,” she whispered in quiet happiness, 
“Oh, Donald!” Her voice changed. “But the 
baby! He was angry about the baby: your baby— 
our baby.” And she laughed that strange laugh. 

The sun, forcing its way through the clouds, 
touched the dark brown paneling with golden light. 
In the silence of the cabin the voices on deck were 
distinctly audible. “He was that cruel to his 
wife!” some one was saying. “All of us was glad 
enough to see him left.” But only a fragment of 
the narrative came to the little group below. 

The woman, oblivious to all but Donald Has¬ 
tings, raised herself on her elbow: 

“I waited—oh, so long! And you never came!” 

“Don’t! I came—too late.” He dropped on 
his knees beside the berth in which she had been 
laid. “I will! I will marry you!” 

Again she laughed that strange, low laugh. 

The captain of the bark, his medicine chest 
open before him, shook his head. “You’ll not mar- 


EVEN SO 


241 


ry her/’ he muttered. “It’ll not be allowed. You’ve 
but to hear her to know that.” 

“I will/’ Hastings cried, wildly. “There’s little 
enough a man can do to atone for great wrong.” 

“You’re overwrought, sir. You don’t know what 
you’re saying.” 

And Christine Widmer laughed again. 

* * 

There was indeed no wedding. Not often is the 
path of atonement made broad and easy. Instead, 
the story of my old New England town came to 
pass, the story of a man who provided for his 
enemy’s wife as if she were his own. For in the 
years to come there sailed with Donald Hastings 
a woman who laughed strangely at times, and 
talked of something other people pretended to have 
forgotten. And Donald Hastings, the marriage 
forbidden, gave her the rest of his life, covering 
her lapses of speech by quick wit and ever-remein- 
bering kindness, making her seem almost like other 
women, and placing out of his own reach forever 
the fellowship of those who called themselves hon¬ 
est folk. 

It all happened a hundred years ago. Stories, 
good and bad, — mostly bad,- — were told of them 
then, and have been told ever since. Such is the 
world’s way. And of Amos Widmer it was known 
only that he was lost at sea when the Winnemere 
went down. Who of us can say what accountings 
are to be made on that day when the good and evil 
are balanced, when things forgotten are remem¬ 
bered, and things unknown are brought to light? 

“On this noon,” wrote the village minister in 
that rare old diary of his, “did Captain Hastings 


242 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


sail in command of the Amaryllis, taking with him, 
as hitherto, poor Christine Widmer.” Then, in the 
intimate privacy of the book, he adds—wise, rash, 
cautious old man: “I am almost of a mind, since 
things are as they are, that it is for the best,— 
even so.” 


Charles Boardman Hawes. 


THE CASK ASHORE 

At the head of a diminutive creek of the Tamar 
River, a little above Saltash on the Cornish shore, 
stands the village of Botusfleming, or Bloflemy, 
and in early summer, when the cherry orchards 
come into bloom, you will search far before finding 
a prettier. 

The years have dealt gently with Botusfleming. 
As it is today, so, or nearly so, it was on a certain 
sunny afternoon in the year 1807, when the Rev. 
Edward Spettigew, curate in charge, sat in the 
garden before his cottage and smoked his pipe 
while he meditated a sermon. That is to say, he 
intended to meditate a sermon. But the afternoon 
was warm; bumblebees hummed drowsily among 
his wallflowers and tulips. From his bench the eye 
followed the vale’s descent between overlapping 
billows of cherry blossom to a gap wherein shone 
the silver Tamar: not, be it understood, the part 
called Hamoaze, where lay the warships and the 
hulks containing the French prisoners, but an up¬ 
per reaHi seldom troubled by shipping. 

Parson Spettigew laid the book face downward 
on his knee while his lips murmured a part of the 
text he had chosen: “A Place of broad rivers and 
streams . . . wherein shall go no galley with oars, 
neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. . . 

His pipe went out. The book slipped from his knee 
to the ground. He slumbered. . . . 


244 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


The garden gate rattled, and he awoke with a 
start. In the pathway below him stood a sailor, 
a middle-sized, middle-aged man, rigged out in 
best shore-going clothes: shiny tarpaulin hat, blue 
coat and waistcoat, shirt open at the throat, and 
white duck trousers with broad-buckled waistbelt. 

“Beggin’ your reverence’s pardon,” began the 
visitor, touching the brim of his hat, and then upon 
second thought uncovering, “but my name’s Jope— 
Ben Jope—” 

“Eh? What can I do for you?” asked Parson 
Spettigew, a trifle flustered at being caught nap¬ 
ping. 

“—of the Vesoovious bomb, bos’n,” pursued 
Mr. Jope, with a smile that disarmed annoyance: 
so ingenuous it was, so friendly, and withal so re¬ 
spectful; “but paid off at eight this morning. May¬ 
be your reverence can tell me whereabouts to find 
an embalmer in these parts?” 

“A—a what?” 

“Embalmer.” Mr. Jope chewed for a moment 
or two upon a quid of tobacco, and began a thought¬ 
ful explanation. “Sort of party you’d go to sup¬ 
posin’ your reverence had a corpse by you and 
wanted to keep it for a permanency. You take a 
lot of gums and spices, and first of all you lays out 
the deceased, and next—” 

“Yes, yes,” the parson interrupted, hurriedly; 
“I know the process, of course.” 

“What—to practice it?” Hope illumined Mr. 
Jope’s countenance. 

“No, most certainly not. . . . But, my good 
man, an embalmer!—and at Botusfleming, of all 
places!” 

The sailor’s face fell. He sighed patiently. 


THE CASK ASHORE 


245 


“That’s what they said at Saltash, more or less. I 
£ot a sister living there—Sarah Treleaven her name 
is—a widow woman, and sells fish. When I called 
on her this morning, ‘Embalmer?’ she said; ‘go 
and embalm your grandmother!’ Those were her 
words, and the rest of the population wasn’t scarce¬ 
ly more helpful. But as luck would have it, while 
I was searchin’, Bill Adams went for a shave, and 
inside o’ the barber’s shop what should he see but 
a fair-sized otter in a glass case. Bill began to 
admire it, careless like, and it turned out the barber 
had stuffed the thing. Maybe your reverence 
knows the man? ‘A. Grigg and Son’ he calls his- 
self.” 

“Grigg? Yes, to be sure; he stuffed a trout 
for me last summer.” 

“What weight?—making so bold.” 

“Seven pounds.” 

Mr. Jope’s face fell again. “Well a-well,” he 
suggested, recovering himself, “I daresay the size 
don’t matter, once you’ve got the knack. We’ve 
brought him along, anyway; an’ what’s more, we’ve 
made him bring all his tools. By his talk, he reck¬ 
ons it to be a shavin’ job, and we agreed to wait 
before we undeceived him.” 

“But—you’ll excuse me—I don’t quite fol¬ 
low—•” 

Mr. Jope pressed a forefinger mysterious to 
his lip, then jerked a thumb in the direction of the 
river. “If your reverence wouldn’ mind steppin’ 
down to the creek with me?” he suggested, respect¬ 
fully. 

Parson Spettigew fetched his hat, and together 
the pair descended the vale beneath the dropping 
petals of the cherry. At the foot of it they came 


246 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


to a creek, which the tide at this hour had flooded 
and almost overbrimmed. Hard by the water’s 
edge, backed by tall elms, stood a dilapidated fish 
store, and below it lay a boat with nose aground 
on a beach of flat stones. Two men were in the 
boat. The barber, a slip of a fellow in rusty top 
hat and suit of rusty black, sat in the stern sheets 
face to face with a large cask: a cask so ample 
that, to find room for his knees, he was forced to 
crook them at a high, uncomfortable angle. In the 
bows, boathook in hand, stood a tall sailor, arrayed 
in shore-going clothes, similar to Mr. Jope’s. His 
face was long, sallow, and expressive of taciturnity, 
and he wore a beard, not where beards are usually 
worn, but as a fringe beneath his clean-shaven chin 
and lantern jaw. 

“Well, here we are!” asserted Mr. Jope, cheer¬ 
fully. “Your reverence knows A. Grigg and Son, 
and the others you can trust in all weathers, bein’ 
William Adams, otherwise Bill, and Eli Tonkin: 
friends o’ mine an’ shipmates both.” 

The parson, perplexed, stared at the tall sea¬ 
man, who touched his hat by way of acknowledging 
the introduction. 

“But—but I only see one!” he protested. 

“This here’s Bill Adams,” said Mr. Jope, and 
again the tall seaman touched his hat. “Is it Eli 
you’re missin’? Eli’s in the cask.” 

“Oh!” 

“We’ll hoick him up to the store, Bill, if you’re 
ready. It looks a nice cool place. And while 
you’re prizin’ him open, I’d best explain to his 
reverence and the barber. Here, ship out the shore 
plank; and you, A. Grigg and Son, lend a hand to 
heave. . . . Aye, you’re right; it weighs more’n 


THE CASK ASHORE 


247 


a trifle—bein’ a quarter-puncheon, an’ the best 
proof sperrits. Tilt her this way. . . . Ready? 
. . . Then w’y-ho! and away she goes!” 

With a heave and a lurch that canted the boat 
until the water poured over her gunwale, the huge 
tub was rolled overside into shallow water. With 
a run and a tremendous lift they hoisted it up to 
the turfy plat, whence Bill Adams steered it with 
ease through the ruinated doorway of the store, 
while Mr. Jope returned, smiling and mopping his 
brow. 

“It’s this-a-way,” he said, addressing the par¬ 
son. “Eli Tonkin his name is, or was; and, as he 
said, of this parish.” 

Here Mr. Jope paused, apparently for confir¬ 
mation. 

“Tonkin?” queried the parson. “There are no 
Tonkins surviving in Botusfleming parish. The 
last of them was a poor old widow I laid to rest 
the week after Christmas.” 

“Belay there! . . . Dead, is she?” Mr. Jope’s 
face exhibited the liveliest disappointment. “And 
after the surprise we’d planned for her!” he mur¬ 
mured ruefully. “Hi, Bill!” he called to his ship¬ 
mate, who, having stored the cask, was returning 
to the boat. 

“Wot is it?” asked Bill Adams, inattentively. 
“Look ’ere, where did we stow the hammer an’ 
chisel?” 

“Take your head out o’ the boat an’ listen. The 
old woman’s dead!” 

The tall man absorbed the news slowly. “That’s 
a facer,” he said at length. “But maybe we can fix 
her up, too? I’ll stand my share.” 

“She was buried the week after Christmas.” 


248 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“Oh!” Bill scratched his head. “Then we 
can’t—not very well.” 

“Times an’ again I’ve heard Eli talk of his poor 
old mother,” said Mr. Jope, turning to the parson. 
“W’ch you’ll hardly believe it, but though I knowed 
him for a West-country man, ’twas not till the last 
I larned what parish he hailed from. It happened 
very curiously—Bill, rout up A. Grigg and Son, 
an’ fetch him forra’d here to listen; you’ll find the 
tools underneath him in the stern sheets.” 

Bill obeyed, and, possessing himself of a ham¬ 
mer and chisel, returned to the shore. The little 
barber drew near and stood at Mr. Jope’s elbow; 
his face wore an unhealthy pallor and he smelt 
potently of strong drink. 

“Brandy it is,” apologized Mr. Jope, observing 
a slight contraction of the parson’s nostril. “I 
reckoned ’twould tauten him a bit for what’s ahead. 
. . . Well, as I was sayin’, it happened very curi¬ 
ously. This day fortnight we were beatin’ up an’ 
across the Bay o’ Biscay, after a four months’ to- 
an’-fro game in front of Toolon Harbor. B lowin’ 
fresh it was, an’ we makin’ pretty poor weather of 
it—the Vesoovious bein’ a powerful wet tub in any¬ 
thing of a sea, an’ a slug at the best o’ times. 
Aboard a bombship everything’s got to be heavy. 

“Well, sir, for a couple of days she’d been 
carryin’ canvas that fairly smothered us, an’ Cap’n 
Crang not a man to care how we fared forra’d, so 
long’s the water didn’ reach aft to his own quarters. 
But at last the first mate, Mr. Wapshott, took pity 
on us an’—the cap’n bein’ below, a-takin’ a nap 
after dinner—sends the crew o’ the maintop aloft 
to take a reef in the tops’l. Poor Eli was one. 
Whereby the men had scarcely reached the top 


THE CASK ASHORE 


249 


afore Cap’n Crang comes up from his cabin an’ 
along the deck, not troublin’ to cast an eye aloft. 
Whereby he missed what was happenin’. Where¬ 
by he had just come abreast o’ the mainmast, 
when—sock at his very feet there drops a man! 
’Twas Eli, that had missed his hold an’ dropped 
clean on his skull. ‘Hallo!’ says the cap’n, ‘an’ 
where the deuce might you come from?’ Eli heard 
it—poor fellow—an’ says he, as I lifted him, an¬ 
swerin’ very respectful, ‘If you please, sir, from 
Botusfleming, three miles t’other side of Saltash.’ 

“‘Then you’ve had a mighty quick passage, 
that’s all I can say,’ answers Cap’n Crang, an’ 
turns on his heel. 

“Well, sir, we all agreed the cap’n might ha’ 
showed more feelin’, specially as poor Eli’d broke 
the base of his skull an’ by eight bells handed in 
the number of his mess. Five or six of us talked 
it over, agreein’ as how ’twasn’ hardly human, an’ 
Eli such a good fellow, too, let alone bein’ a decent 
seaman. Whereby the notion came to me that as 
he’d come from Botusfleming—those bein’ his last 
words—back to Botusfleming he should go; an’ 
on that we cooked up a plot. Bill Adams bein’ on 
duty in the sick bay, there wasn’ no difficulty in 
sewin’ up a dummy in Eli’s place; an’ the dummy, 
sir, nex’ day we dooly committed to the deep,—as 
the sayin’ goes,—Cap’n Crang hisself readin’ the 
service. The real question was what to do with Eli. 
Whereby, the purser an’ me bein’ friends, I goes 
to him an’ says, ‘Look here,’ I says, ‘we’ll be paid 
off in ten days or so, an’ there’s a trifle o’ prize 
money, too. What price’ll you sell us a cask o’ 
the ship’s rum?—say a quarter-puncheon for 
choice?’ ‘What for?’ says he. ‘For shore-going 


250 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


purposes/ says I; ‘Bill Adams an’ me got a use 
for it.’ ‘Well/ says the purser,—a decent chap, 
an’ by name Wilkins,—‘I’m an honest man/ says 
he, ‘an’ to oblige a friend you shall have it at store 
valuation rate. An’ what’s more/ says he, ‘I got 
the wind o’ your little game, an’ll do what I can to 
help it along, for I al’ays liked the deceased, an’ 
in my opinion Cap’n Crang behaved most unfeelin’. 
You tell Bill to bring the body to me, an’ there’ll 
be no more trouble about it till I hands you over 
the cask at Plymouth.’ Well, sir, the man was as 
good as his word. We smuggled the cask ashore 
last evenin’, an’ hid it in the woods this side o’ 
Mount Edgcumbe. This mornin’ we reshipped it, 
as you see. First along we intended no more than 
just to break the news to Eli’s mother an’ hand him 
over to her; but Bill reckoned that to hand him 
over, cask an’ all, would look careless; for, as he 
said, ‘ ’Twasn’t as if you could bury ’im in a cask.’ 
We allowed your reverence would draw the line at 
that, though we hadn’ the pleasure o’ knowin’ you 
then.” 

“Yes,” agreed the parson, as Mr. Jope paused; 
“I fear it could not be done without scandal.” 

“That’s just how Bill put it. ‘Well, then/ says 
I, thinkin’ it over, ‘why not do the handsome while 
we’re about it? You an’ me ain’t the sort of men/ 
I says, ‘to spoil the ship for a ha’porth o’ tar.’ 
‘Certainly we ain’t,’ says Bill, ‘and we’ve done a 
lot for Eli/ says I. ‘We have/ says Bill. ‘Well, 
then/ says I, ‘let’s put a coat o’ paint on the whole 
business an’ have him embalmed!’ Bill was en¬ 
chanted.” 

“I—I beg your pardon?” put in the barber, 
edging away a pace. 


THE CASK ASHORE 


251 


“Bill was enchanted. Hark to him in the store, 
there—knockin’ away at the chisel.” 

“But there’s some misunderstanding,” the little 
man protested, earnestly. “I understood it was to 
be a shave.” 

“You can shave him, too, if you like.” 

“If I th-thought you were s-serious—” 

“Have some more brandy.” Mr. Jope pulled 
out and proffered a flask. “Only don’t overdo it, 
or it’ll make your head shaky. Serious? You may 
lay to it that Bill’s serious. He’s that set on the 
idea, it don’t make no difference to him—as you 
may have noticed—Eli’s mother not bein’ alive to 
take pleasure in it. Why, he wanted to embalm 
her, too! He’s doin’ this now for his own gratifi¬ 
cation, is Bill; an’ you may take it from me when 
Bill sets his heart on a thing he sees it through. 
Don’t you cross him—that’s my advice.” 

“But, but—*” 

“No, you don’t!”—as the little man made a 
wild spring to flee up the beach Mr. Jope shot out 
a hand and gripped him by the coat collar. “Now, 
look here,” he said very quietly, as the poor wretch 
would have groveled at the parson’s feet, “you was 
boastin’ to Bill, not an hour agone, as you could 
stuff anything.” 

“Don’t hurt him,” Parson Spettigew interposed, 
touching Mr. Jope’s arm. 

“I’m not hurtin’ him, your reverence, only— 
Eh? What’s that?” 

All turned their faces toward the store. 

“Your friend is calling to you,” said the parson. 

“Bad language, too?—that’s not like Bill, as a 
rule. Ahoy, there! Bill!” 

“Ahoy!” answered the voice of Mr. Adams. 


252 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


/‘What’s up?” Without waiting for an answer, 
Mr. Jope ran the barber before him up the beach 
to the doorway, the parson following. “What’s 
up?” he demanded again, as he drew breath. 

“Take an’ see for yourself,” answered Mr. 
Adams, darkly, pointing with his chisel. A fine 
fragrance of rum permeated the air of the store. 

Mr. Jope advanced and peered into the staved 
cask. “Gone?” he exclaimed, and gazed around 
blankly. 

Bill Adams nodded. 

“But where? . . . You don’t say he’s dis¬ 

solved?” 

“It ain’t the usual way o’ rum. And it is rum?” 
Bill appealed to the parson. 

“By the smell, undoubtedly.” 

“I tell you what’s happened. That fool of a 
Wilkins has made a mistake in the cask ...” 

“An’ Eli?—oh Lord! Eh?” gasped Mr. Jope. 

“They’ll have returned Eli to the Victuallin’ 
Yard before this,” said Bill, gloomily. 

“I overheard Wilkins sayin’ as he was to pass 
over all stores an’ accounts at nine-thirty this 
mornin’.” 

“An’ once there, who knows where lie’s got 
mixed? He’ll go the round of the Fleet, maybe. 
Oh, my word! an’ the ship that broaches him!” 

Bill Adams opened his mouth and shut it, find¬ 
ing no speech; opened it again, and: “They’ll 
reckon they got a lucky bag,” he said, weakly. 

“An’ Wilkins paid off with the rest, an’ no ad¬ 
dress. Even if he could help, which I doubt.” 

“Eh? I got a note from Wilkins, as it hap¬ 
pens.” Bill Adams took off his tarpaulin hat and 
extracted a paper from the lining of the crown. 


THE CASK ASHORE 


253 


“He passed it down to me this mornin’ as I pushed 
off from the ship. Said I was to keep it, an’ maybe. 
I’d find it useful. I wondered what he meant at 
the time, me takin’ no particular truck with pursers 
ashore. ... It crossed my mind, as I’d heard he 
meant to get married, that maybe he wanted me to 
stand best man at the weddin’. W’icli I didn’ open 
the note at the time, not likin’ to refuse him after 
he’d behaved so well to us.” 

“Pass it over,” commanded Mr. Jope. He took 
the paper and unfolded it, but either the light was 
dim within the store, or the handwriting hard to 
decipher. 

“Would your reverence read it out for us?” 

Parson Spettigew carried the paper to the door¬ 
way. He read its contents aloud and slowly: 

“To Mr. Bill Adams, 

Capt. of the Fore-top H.M.S. Vesuvius, 

“Sir: It was a dummy Capt. Crang buried. We 
cast the last E. Tonkin overboard the second night 
in lat. 46-30, long. 7-15, or thereabouts. By which 
time the feeling aboard had cooled down and it 
seemed such a waste of good spirit. The rum you 
paid for is good rum. Hoping that you and Mr. 
Jope will find a use for it. 

“Your obedient servant, 

“S. Wilkins.” 

There was a long pause, through which Mr. 
Adams could be heard breathing hard. 

“But what are we to do with it?” asked Mr. 
Jope, scratching his head in perplexity. 

“Drink it. Wot else?” 

“But where?” 

“Oh,” said Mr. Adams, “anywhere!” 


254 THE BELLMAN BOOK OF FICTION 


“That’s all very well/’ replied his friend. “You 
never had no property, an’ don’t know its burdens. 
We’ll have to hire a house for this, an’ live there 
till it’s finished.” 


Sir Arthur T. Quiller-Couch. 






























